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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, by Henry Lee
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-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
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-
-Title: The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary
-       A Curious Fable of the Cotton Plant
-
-Author: Henry Lee
-
-Release Date: July 28, 2013 [EBook #43343]
-
-Language: English
-
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+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43343 ***
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, by Henry Lee
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
-
-
-Title: The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary
-       A Curious Fable of the Cotton Plant
-
-Author: Henry Lee
-
-Release Date: July 28, 2013 [EBook #43343]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VEGETABLE LAMB OF TARTARY ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Chris Curnow, Harry Lamé and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
-file was produced from images generously made available
-by The Internet Archive)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber's Notes:
-
-Italic texts in the original work have been transcribed as _text_. Small
-capitals in the original work have been transcribed as ALL CAPITALS.
-[oe] stands for the oe-ligature, [y] for the letter yogh. Greek words
-have been transcribed as [Greek: ... ].
-
-More Transcriber's Notes may be found at the end of this text.
-
-
-[Illustration: Planta Tartarica Boromez.
-
-THE "BAROMETZ," OR "TARTARIAN LAMB."
-
-_After Joannes Zahn._]
-
-
-
-
-  THE VEGETABLE LAMB
-  OF
-  TARTARY;
-
-  _A Curious Fable of the Cotton Plant._
-
-  TO WHICH IS ADDED
-  A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF COTTON AND
-  THE COTTON TRADE.
-
-  BY
-
-  HENRY LEE, F.L.S., F.G.S., F.Z.S.,
-  SOMETIME NATURALIST OF THE BRIGHTON AQUARIUM,
-  AND
-  AUTHOR OF 'THE OCTOPUS, OR THE DEVIL-FISH OF FICTION AND OF FACT,'
-  'SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED,' 'SEA FABLES EXPLAINED,' ETC.
-
-  ILLUSTRATED.
-
-  LONDON:
-  SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON,
-  CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.
-  1887.
-
-  _All Rights reserved._
-
-
-
-
-  LONDON:
-  PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
-  STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS.
-
-
-                                                                    PAGE
-
-  CHAPTER I.
-
-  THE FABLE AND ITS INTERPRETATION                                     1
-
-
-  CHAPTER II.
-
-  THE HISTORY OF COTTON AND ITS INTRODUCTION INTO EUROPE              63
-
-
-  APPENDIX                                                            97
-
-  INDEX                                                              107
-
-
-
-
-LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
-
-
-  FIG.                                                              PAGE
-
-  THE "BAROMETZ," OR "TARTARIAN LAMB."--_After Joannes Zahn_
-                                                          _Frontispiece_
-
-  1.--THE VEGETABLE LAMB PLANT.--_After Sir John Mandeville_           3
-
-  2.--PORTRAIT OF THE "BAROMETZ," OR "SCYTHIAN LAMB."--_After Claude
-  Duret_                                                               9
-
-  3.--ADAM AND EVE ADMIRING THE PLANTS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN. THE
-  "VEGETABLE LAMB" IN THE BACKGROUND.--_Fac-simile of the
-  Frontispiece of Parkinson's "Paradisus"_                            19
-
-  4.--RHIZOME OF A FERN, SHAPED BY THE CHINESE TO REPRESENT A TAN-
-  COLOURED DOG, AND LAID BEFORE THE ROYAL SOCIETY BY SIR HANS SLOANE
-  AS A SPECIMEN OF THE "BAROMETZ," OR "TARTARIAN LAMB."--_From the
-  'Philosophical Transactions,' vol. xx., p. 861_                     25
-
-  5.--ROUGH MODEL OF A TAN-COLOURED DOG, SHAPED BY THE CHINESE FROM
-  THE RHIZOME OF A FERN, AND SUBMITTED TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY BY DR.
-  BREYN AS A SPECIMEN OF THE "SCYTHIAN VEGETABLE LAMB," OR
-  BORAMETZ.--_From the 'Philosophical Transactions,' No. 390_         31
-
-  6.--THE "BORAMETZ," OR "SCYTHIAN LAMB."--_From De la Croix's
-  'Connubia Florum'_                                                  37
-
-  7.--A COTTON-POD                                                    61
-
-
-
-
-PREFACE.
-
-
-The fable of the existence of a mysterious "plant-animal" variously
-entitled "_The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary_," "_The Scythian Lamb_," and
-"_The Barometz_," or "_Borametz_," is one of the curious myths of the
-Middle Ages with which I have been long acquainted. Until the year 1883,
-not having given serious thought to it, or made it a subject of critical
-examination, I had been content to accept as correct the explanation of
-it now universally adopted; namely, that it originated from certain
-little lamb-like toy figures ingeniously constructed by the Chinese from
-the rhizome and frond-stems of a tree-fern, which, from its
-identification with the object of the fable, has received the name of
-_Dicksonia Barometz_. But during my researches in the works of ancient
-writers when preparing the manuscript of my two books, '_Sea Monsters
-Unmasked_,' and '_Sea Fables Explained_,' I came upon passages of old
-authors which convinced me that these toy "lambs" made from ferns by the
-Chinese had no more connexion with the story of "_The Vegetable Lamb_"
-than the artificial mermaids so cleverly constructed by the Japanese
-were the cause and origin of the ancient and world-wide belief in
-mermaids. Subsequent investigations have confirmed this opinion.
-
-I have found that all of these old myths which I have been able to trace
-to their source have originated in a perfectly true statement of some
-curious and interesting fact; which statement has been so garbled and
-distorted, so misrepresented and perverted in repetition by numerous
-writers, that in the course of centuries its original meaning has been
-lost, and a monstrous fiction has been substituted for it. "Truth lies
-at the bottom of a well," says the adage; and in searching for the
-origin of these old myths and legends, the deeper we can dive down into
-the past the greater is the probability of our discovering the truth
-concerning them. To obtain a clue to the identity of "_The Scythian
-Lamb_" we must consult the pages of historians and philosophers who
-lived and wrote from eighteen to sixteen centuries before Sir John
-Mandeville published his version of the story; and, having there found
-set before us the real "_Vegetable Lamb_" in all its truthful simplicity
-and beauty, we shall be able to recognise its form and features under
-the various disguises it was made to assume by the wonder-mongers of the
-Middle Ages.
-
-I venture to believe that the reader who will kindly follow my argument
-(p. 42, _et seq._) will agree with me that the rumour which spread from
-Western Asia all over Europe, and was a subject of discussion by learned
-men during many centuries, of the existence of "a tree bearing fruit, or
-seed-pods, which when they ripened and burst open were seen to contain
-little lambs, of whose soft white fleeces Eastern people wove material
-for their clothing," was a plant of far higher importance to mankind
-than the paltry toy animals made by the Chinese from the root of a fern,
-of which gew-gaws only four specimens are known to have been brought to
-this country. It seems to me clear and indisputable that the rumour
-referred to the cotton-pod, and originated in the first introduction of
-cotton and the fabrics woven from it into Eastern Europe.
-
-It will be seen that the explanation of the process by which the
-truthful report of a remarkable fact was in time perverted into the
-detailed history of an absurd fiction is very easy and intelligible.
-
-As this little book was originally intended for publication, like its
-predecessors before-mentioned, as a hand-book in connection with the
-Literary Department of the South Kensington Exhibitions, I have treated
-in a separate chapter of the history of cotton, its use by ancient races
-in Asia, Africa, and America, and its gradual introduction amongst the
-nations of Europe. The various stages of its progress Westward were so
-distinctly and intimately dependent on many remarkable events in the
-world's history, by which its advance was alternately retarded and
-facilitated, that the annals of the "_vegetable wool_" which holds so
-important a place amongst the manufacturing industries of Great Britain
-are hardly less romantic than the fable of "_The Vegetable Lamb_," which
-was its forerunner.
-
-  HENRY LEE.
-
-  SAVAGE CLUB.
-
-  _May, 1887._
-
-
-
-
-  THE
-  VEGETABLE LAMB OF TARTARY
-
-  A CURIOUS FABLE OF THE
-  COTTON PLANT.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I.
-
-THE FABLE AND ITS INTERPRETATION.
-
-
-Amongst the curious myths of the Middle Ages none were more extravagant
-and persistent than that of the "Vegetable Lamb of Tartary," known also
-as the "Scythian Lamb," and the "Borametz," or "Barometz," the latter
-title being derived from a Tartar word signifying "a lamb." This "lamb"
-was described as being at the same time both a true animal and a living
-plant. According to some writers this composite "plant-animal" was the
-fruit of a tree which sprang from a seed like that of a melon, or gourd;
-and when the fruit or seed-pod of this tree was fully ripe it burst open
-and disclosed to view within it a little lamb, perfect in form, and in
-every way resembling an ordinary lamb naturally born. This remarkable
-tree was supposed to grow in the territory of "the Tartars of the East,"
-formerly called "Scythia"; and it was said that from the fleeces of
-these "tree-lambs," which were of surpassing whiteness, the natives of
-the country where they were found wove materials for their garments and
-"head-dress." In the course of time another version of the story was
-circulated, in which the lamb was not described as being the fruit of a
-tree, but as being a living lamb attached by its navel to a short stem
-rooted in the earth. The stem, or stalk, on which the lamb was thus
-suspended above the ground was sufficiently flexible to allow the animal
-to bend downward, and browze on the herbage within its reach. When all
-the grass within the length of its tether had been consumed the stem
-withered and the lamb died. This plant-lamb was reported to have bones,
-blood, and delicate flesh, and to be a favourite food of wolves, though
-no other carnivorous animal would attack it. Many other details were
-given concerning it, which will be found mentioned in the following
-pages. This legend met with almost universal credence from the
-thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, and, even then, only gave place
-to an explanation of it as absurd and delusive as itself. Following the
-outline sketched in the preface, I shall, in this chapter, lay before
-the reader the story of the "Barometz" or "Vegetable Lamb," as related
-by various writers, and shall then give my reasons for assigning to the
-fable an interpretation very different from that which has been hitherto
-accepted as the true one.
-
-The story of a wonderful plant which bore living lambs for its fruit,
-and grew in Tartary, seems to have been first brought into public notice
-in England in the reign of Edward III., by Sir John Mandeville, the
-"Knyght of Ingelond that was y bore in the toun of Seynt Albans, and
-travelide aboute in the worlde in many diverse countreis, to se
-mervailes and customes of countreis, and diversiteis of folkys, and
-diverse shap of men and of beistis." In the 26th chapter of the book in
-which he "wrot and telleth all the mervaile that he say," and which he
-dedicated to the King, he treats of "the Countreis and Yles that ben
-be[y]ond the Lond of Cathay, and of the Frutes there"; and amongst the
-curiosities he met with in the dominions of the "Cham" of Tartary he
-mentions the following:--
-
-[Illustration: FIG. 1.--THE VEGETABLE LAMB PLANT.
-
-_After Sir John Mandeville._
-
-This plate illustrates that version of the Fable by which the "Vegetable
-Lamb" is represented as contained within a fruit, or seed-pod, which,
-when ripe, bursts open, and discloses the little lamb within it.]
-
-"Now schalle I seye [y]ou semyngly of Countrees and Yles that ben
-be[y]onde the Countrees that I have spoken of. Wherefore I seye you in
-passynge be the Lond of Cathaye toward the high Ynde, and towards
-Bacharye, men passen be a Kyngdom that men clepen Caldilhe: that is a
-fair Contree. And there growethe a maner of Fruyt, as though it weren
-Gowrdes: and whan thei ben rype men kutten hem ato, and men fynden with
-inne a lytylle Best, in Flesche, in Bon and Blode, as though it were a
-lytylle Lomb with outen Wolle. And Men eten both the Frut and the Best;
-and that is a great Marveylle. Of that Frute I have eaten; alle thoughe
-it were wondirfulle, but that I knowe wel that God is marveyllous in his
-Werkes."[1]
-
-  [1] 'The Voiage and Travaile of Sir John Maundevile, Knt.' See
-  Appendix A.
-
-Sir John Mandeville appears to have never previously heard of this
-strange plant, but reports of its existence under various phases may be
-traced back, as we shall presently see, to a date at least eighteen
-hundred years earlier than that of his mention of it. As it is in the
-works of these older writers that we shall find the long-sought key of
-the mystery, we will set them aside for the present and follow the
-growth and dissemination of the fable.
-
-Claude Duret, of Moulins, who, in his '_Histoire Admirable des Plantes_
-(1605),' devotes to it a chapter entitled "The Boramets of Scythia, or
-Tartary, true Zoophytes or plant-animals; that is to say, plants living
-and sensitive like animals," therein says:--
-
-"I remember to have read some time ago in a very ancient Hebrew book
-entitled in Latin the _Talmud Ierosolimitanum_, and written by a Jewish
-Rabbi Jochanan, assisted by others, in the year of salvation 436, that a
-certain personage named Moses Chusensis (he being a native of Ethiopia)
-affirmed, on the authority of Rabbi Simeon, that there was a certain
-country of the earth which bore a zoophyte, or plant-animal, called in
-the Hebrew '_Jeduah_.' It was in form like a lamb, and from its navel
-grew a stem or root by which this zoophyte or plant-animal was fixed,
-attached, like a gourd, to the soil below the surface of the ground,
-and, according to the length of its stem or root, it devoured all the
-herbage which it was able to reach within the circle of its tether. The
-hunters who went in search of this creature were unable to capture or
-remove it until they had succeeded in cutting the stem by well-aimed
-arrows or darts, when the animal immediately fell prostrate to the earth
-and died. Its bones being placed with certain ceremonies and
-incantations in the mouth of one desiring to foretell the future, he was
-instantly seized with a spirit of divination, and endowed with the gift
-of prophecy."
-
-As I was unable to find in the Latin translation of the Talmud of
-Jerusalem the passage mentioned by Claude Duret, and was anxious to
-ascertain whether any reference to this curious legend existed in the
-Talmudical books, I sought the assistance of learned members of the
-Jewish community, and, amongst them, of the Rev. Dr. Hermann Adler,
-Chief Rabbi Delegate of the United Congregations of the British Empire.
-He most kindly interested himself in the matter, and wrote to me as
-follows:--
-
-"It affords me much gratification to give you the information you
-desire on the Borametz. In the Mishna _Kilaim_, chap. viii. § 5 (a
-portion of the Talmud), the passage occurs:--'Creatures called _Adne
-Hasadeh_ (literally, "lords of the field") are regarded as beasts.'
-There is a variant reading,--_Abne Hasadeh_ (stones of the field). A
-commentator, Rabbi Simeon, of Sens (died about 1235), writes as follows
-on this passage:--'It is stated in the Jerusalem Talmud that this is a
-human being of the mountains: it lives by means of its navel: if its
-navel be cut it cannot live. I have heard in the name of Rabbi Meir, the
-son of Kallonymos of Speyer, that this is the animal called '_Jeduah_.'
-This is the '_Jedoui_' mentioned in Scripture (lit. _wizard_, Leviticus
-xix. 31); with its bones witchcraft is practised. A kind of large stem
-issues from a root in the earth on which this animal, called '_Jadua_,'
-grows, just as gourds and melons. Only the '_Jadua_' has, in all
-respects, a human shape, in face, body, hands, and feet. By its navel it
-is joined to the stem that issues from the root. No creature can
-approach within the tether of the stem, for it seizes and kills them.
-Within the tether of the stem it devours the herbage all around. When
-they want to capture it no man dares approach it, but they tear at the
-stem until it is ruptured, whereupon the animal dies.' Another
-commentator, Rabbi Obadja of Berbinoro, gives the same explanation, only
-substituting--'They aim arrows at the stem until it is ruptured,' &c.
-The author of an ancient Hebrew work, Maase Tobia (Venice, 1705), gives
-an interesting description of this animal. In Part IV. c. 10, page 786,
-he mentions the Borametz found in Great Tartary. He repeats the
-description of Rabbi Simeon, and adds what he has found in 'A New Work
-on Geography,' namely, that 'the Africans (_sic_) in Great Tartary, in
-the province of Sambulala, are enriched by means of seeds like the seeds
-of gourds, only shorter in size, which grow and blossom like a stem to
-the navel of an animal which is called _Borametz_ in their language,
-i.e. '_lamb_,' on account of its resembling a lamb in all its limbs,
-from head to foot; its hoofs are cloven, its skin is soft, its wool is
-adapted for clothing, but it has no horns, only the hairs of its head,
-which grow, and are intertwined like horns. Its height is half a cubit
-and more. According to those who speak of this wondrous thing, its taste
-is like the flesh of fish, its blood as sweet as honey, and it lives as
-long as there is herbage within reach of the stem, from which it derives
-its life. If the herbage is destroyed or perishes, the animal also dies
-away. It has rest from all beasts and birds of prey, except the wolf,
-which seeks to destroy it.' The author concludes by expressing his
-belief, that this account of the animal having the shape of a lamb is
-more likely to be true than that it is of human form."
-
-We have an interesting record of another journey into Tartary,
-undertaken almost simultaneously with that of Sir John Mandeville, by
-Odoricus of Friuli, a Minorite friar belonging to the monastery of
-Utina, near Padua. The exact date of his departure on his travels is not
-mentioned, but he returned home in 1330, and the history of his
-adventures and observations[2] was written in the month of May of that
-year--thus taking precedence by about thirty years of the narrative of
-the old English traveller.
-
-  [2] 'The Journall of Frier Odoricus of Friuli, one of the order of the
-  Minorites, concerning strange things which he saw amongst the Tartars
-  of the East.'--'Hakluyt Collection of Early Voyages,' vol. ii. 1809.
-  See Appendix B.
-
-Odoricus, describing his visit to the country of the "Grand Can,"
-says:--"I heard of another wonder from persons worthy of credit; namely,
-that in a province of the said Can, in which is the mountain of
-Capsius[3] (the province is called 'Kalor'), there grow gourds, which,
-when they are ripe, open, and within them is found a little beast like
-unto a young lamb, even as I myself have heard reported that there stand
-certain trees upon the shore of the Irish Sea bearing fruits like unto a
-gourd, which at a certain time of the year do fall into the water and
-become birds called Bernacles; and this is true."
-
-  [3] Probably an error of transcription for "Caspius." The mountain of
-  Caspius (now Kasbin) is about eighty miles due south of the Caspian
-  Sea, and in Persian territory, near Teheran.
-
-[Illustration: FIG. 2.--PORTRAIT OF THE "BAROMETZ," OR "SCYTHIAN LAMB."
-
-_After Claude Duret._]
-
-In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the "Scythian Lamb" was made
-a subject of investigation and argument by some of the most celebrated
-writers of that period.
-
-Fortunio Liceti, Professor of Philosophy at Padua, writing in 1518,[4]
-gives his complete credence to the story of the little beast like a lamb
-found within a fruit-pod when it bursts from over-ripeness; and besides
-the above passage from Odoricus quotes another, by which it would appear
-that the worthy friar afterwards himself saw this botanical curiosity,
-and described it as being "as white as snow." I have been unable to find
-this paragraph in the Hakluyt edition of Odoricus's travels.
-
-  [4] '_De Spontaneo Viventium Ortu_,' lib. 3, cap. 45.
-
-Juan Eusebio Nieremberg, however, in his '_Historia Naturæ_' (Antwerp,
-1605), also quotes these two passages, and in exactly the same words. He
-probably copied them from Liceti, and not from the original.
-
-Sigismund, Baron von Herberstein, who, in 1517 and 1526, was the
-ambassador of the Emperors Maximilian I. and Charles V. to the "Grand
-Czard, or Duke of Muscovy," in his 'Notes on Russia,'[5] gives further
-details of this "vegetable-animal." He writes:--"In the neighbourhood
-of the Caspian Sea, between the rivers Volga and Jaick, formerly dwelt
-the kings of the Zavolha, certain Tartars, in whose country is found a
-wonderful and almost incredible curiosity, of which Demetrius
-Danielovich, a person in high authority, gave me the following account;
-namely, that his father, who was once sent on an embassy by the Duke of
-Muscovy to the Tartar king of the country referred to, whilst he was
-there, saw and remarked, amongst other things, a certain seed like that
-of a melon, but rather rounder and longer, from which, when it was set
-in the earth, grew a plant resembling a lamb, and attaining to a height
-of about two and a half feet, and which was called in the language of
-the country 'Borametz,' or 'the little Lamb.' It had a head, eyes, ears,
-and all other parts of the body, as a newly-born lamb. He also stated
-that it had an exceedingly soft wool, which was frequently used for the
-manufacturing of head-coverings. Many persons also affirmed to me that
-they had seen this wool. Further, he told me that this plant, if plant
-it should be called, had blood, but not true flesh: that, in place of
-flesh, it had a substance similar to the flesh of the crab, and that its
-hoofs were not horny, like those of a lamb, but of hairs brought
-together into the form of the divided hoof of a living lamb. It was
-rooted by the navel in the middle of the belly, and devoured the
-surrounding herbage and grass, and lived as long as that lasted; but
-when there was no more within its reach the stem withered, and the lamb
-died. It was of so excellent a flavour that it was the favourite food of
-wolves and other rapacious animals. For myself," adds the Baron,
-"although I had previously regarded these Borametz as fabulous, the
-accounts of it were confirmed to me by so many persons worthy of
-credence that I have thought it right to describe it; and this with the
-less hesitation because I was told by Guillaume Postel,[6] a man of much
-learning, that a person named Michel, interpreter of the Turkish and
-Arabic languages to the Republic of Venice, assured him that he had seen
-brought to Chalibontis (now Karaboghaz), on the south-eastern shore of
-the Caspian Sea, from Samarcand and other districts lying towards the
-south, the very soft and delicate wool of a certain plant used by the
-Mussulmans as padding for the small caps which they wear on their shaven
-heads, and also as a protection for their chests. He said, however, that
-he had not seen the plant, nor knew its name, except that it was called
-'Smarcandeos,' and was a zoophyte, or plant-animal. The numerous
-descriptions given to him," he added, "differed so little that he was
-induced to believe that there was more truthfulness in this matter than
-he had supposed, and to accept it as a fact redounding to the glory of
-the Sovereign Creator, to whom all things are possible."
-
-  [5] '_Rerum Muscoviticarum Commentarii_,' 1549. See Appendix C.
-
-  [6] Author of '_Liber de Causis, seu de Principiis et Originibus
-  Naturæ_,' &c.
-
-Shortly after the publication of the above narrative by Sigismund von
-Herberstein, and probably in allusion to it, Girolamo Cardano, of Pavia,
-carefully discussed the phenomenon in question in his work '_De Rerum
-Naturâ_,'[7] printed at Nürnberg in 1557. He endeavoured to expose the
-absurdity of the statements made concerning this "animal-plant," and
-explained the physical impossibility of its existence in the manner
-described. He argued that if it had blood it must have a heart, and that
-the soil in which a plant grows is not fitted to supply a heart with
-movement and vital heat. He also pointed out that embryo animals,
-especially, require warmth for their development from the _ovum_, which
-they could not obtain if raised from a seed planted in the earth,
-demonstrating clearly enough that no warm-blooded animal could exist
-thus organically fastened to the earth. In reply, however, to a possible
-question suggested by himself, why there should be no plant-animal on
-land, seeing that there are zoophytes in the sea, he, with the weakness
-and indecision which were innate in his character, admitted that "where
-the atmosphere was thick and dense there might, perhaps, be a plant
-having sensation, and also imperfect flesh, such as that of mollusks and
-fishes."
-
-  [7] Lib. vi. cap. 22.
-
-This weak point in his argument laid him open to the criticism of his
-relentless enemy, Julius Cæsar Scaliger. Always on the watch to wound
-and harass Cardano with cutting satire and irritating gibes, this
-caustic persecutor lost no time in making his attack. In one of his
-"_Exercitationes_"[8] he thus personally addressed the object of his
-sneering disparagement:--
-
-  [8] '_Exotericarum Exercitationum_,' lib. xv., "_De Subtilitate_"; _ad
-  Hieronymum Cardanum Exercit._ 181, cap. 29. Frankfort, 1557. See
-  Appendix D.
-
-"You may regard as beyond ridicule this wonderful Tartar plant. The most
-renowned of the Tartar hordes of the present day, by its reputation, its
-antiquity, and its nobility, is that of the Zavolha. These people sow a
-seed like that of the melon, but rather smaller, from which springs and
-grows out of the earth a plant which they call 'Borametz,' _i.e._ 'the
-Lamb.' This plant grows to the height of three feet in the likeness of a
-real lamb, having feet, hoofs, ears, and a head perfect with the
-exception of horns, instead of which the plant has hairs in the form of
-horns. Its skin is soft and delicate, and is used in Tartary for
-head-gear. The internal pulp is said to be like the flesh of the
-cray-fish, and to have an agreeable flavour; but if an incision be
-made, real blood flows from it. The root or stalk which rises from the
-earth is attached to the navel of the lamb, and (which is more
-remarkable) whilst the plant is surrounded with herbage it lives as does
-a lamb, but as soon as it has consumed all within its reach it withers
-and dies. This does not happen by the arrival of the plant at any
-definite period of its growth, for it has been found by experiment that
-if the grass around it be removed it perishes. Another most curious
-circumstance connected with it is that wolves will eat it with avidity,
-though no other carnivorous animals will attack it. This," says
-Scaliger, still apostrophizing Cardano, "is merely a little sauce and
-seasoning to your allusion to the fable of the Lamb; but I would like to
-know from you how four distinct legs and their feet can be produced from
-one stem."
-
-It is very remarkable that this dissertation of Scaliger, which is
-really a keen satire on Cardano, and a sarcastic repetition of his
-version of the fable with ironical comments thereon, has been almost
-invariably taken as serious, and regarded as an expression of his entire
-belief in the "Scythian Lamb," as described. Of all subsequent writers
-on the subject, Deusingius[9] seems to have been the only one who
-clearly perceived Scaliger's intention and meaning. Hence, many profound
-believers in the myth have claimed as their champion one who would have
-derided them for their credulity.
-
-  [9] Antonius Deusingius, Professor of Medicine, and Rector of the
-  University of Groningen, in his '_Fasciculus Dissertationum
-  Selectorum_,' p. 598, printed in 1660, declares his own utter
-  disbelief in this animal-vegetable monstrosity, and after quoting
-  Scaliger, thus writes of him:--"_Hæc equidem Scaliger, qui tamen ne
-  serio historiam narrare credatur quam ipse revera pro fabulosa habet,
-  nequaquam vero approbat, ut perperam de eo refert Sennert._"--_Hyp.
-  Physic._ 5, cap. 8.
-
-Claude Duret, for example, whose implicit faith in the marvellous
-zoophyte nothing could shake, quotes verbatim in its defence the remarks
-of "le grand Jules César Scaliger," and asks[10] triumphantly,--
-
-  [10] '_Histoire admirable des Plantes_,' p. 322.
-
-"Who cannot see plainly that Cardano, after having long doubted, and
-after having adduced philosophical arguments drawn from the works of
-Aristotle and other eminent writers, felt himself obliged and condemned
-to confess that in a place filled with heavy and dense air (such as is
-Tartary) the Borametz--true plant-animals--might exist as described, as
-well as sponges, 'sea-nettles,' and 'sea-lungs,' which every one knows
-are true zoophytes, or animal-plants."
-
-After this amusing assumption that the air of Tartary possesses the
-"weight" and "density" necessary for the production of plant-animals,
-Duret quotes from Sir John Mandeville's book in the language in which it
-was originally written--the Romanic--the passage which I have extracted
-from the old English version of the enterprising knight's 'Voiage and
-Travailes,' and also cites, in confirmation of the prodigy, the account
-given of it by the Baron Von Herberstein. He then strongly expresses his
-own belief that--
-
-"Of all the strange and marvellous trees, shrubs, plants and herbs which
-Nature, or, rather, God himself, has produced, or ever will produce in
-this Universe, there will never be seen anything so worthy of admiration
-and contemplation as these 'Borametz' of Scythia, or Tartary,--plants
-which are also animals, and which browze and eat as quadrupeds.... If I
-did not entirely believe this I would denounce it as fabulous, instead
-of accepting it as a fact; but those who are in the habit of daily
-studying good and rare books, printed and in manuscript, and who are
-endowed with great wisdom and understanding, know that there is no
-impossibility in Nature, _i.e._ God himself, to whom be all the honour
-and glory!"
-
-Besides the authors already quoted, and others who merely copied the
-narratives of their predecessors, Guillaume de Saluste, the Sieur du
-Bartas, accepted as authentic the story of the Vegetable Lamb. In his
-poem "_La Semaine_," published in 1578, in which the first few days of
-the existence of all terrestrial things are described reverently and
-with considerable power, he represents this plant as one of those which
-excited the astonishment of the newly-created Adam as he wandered on the
-first day of the second week through the Garden of Eden, the earthly
-Paradise in which he had been placed.
-
-    "Or, confus, il se perd dans les tournoyements,
-    Embrouillées erreurs, courbez desvoyements,
-    Conduits virevoultez, et sentes desloyales
-    D'un Dedale infiny qui comprend cent Dedales,
-    Clos non de romarins dextrement cizelez
-    En hommes, my-chevaux, en courserots seelez,
-    En escaillez oyseaux, en balènes cornues,
-    Et mille autres façons de bestes incogneues,
-    Ains de vrays animaux en la terre plantez,
-    Humant l'air des poulmons, et d'herbes alimentez,
-    Tels que les Boramets, qui chez les Scythes naissent
-    D'une graine menues, et des plantes repaissent;
-    Bien que du corps, des yeux, de la bouche, et du nez,
-    Ils semblent des moutons qui sont naguières naiz.
-    Ils le seroient du vray, si dans l'alme poictrine
-    De terre ils n'enfonçoient une vive raçine
-    Qui tient à leur nombril, et tombe le meme jour
-    Quils ont brouttè le foin qui croissoit à l'entour,
-    O, merveilleux effect de dextre divine,
-    La plante a chair et sang, l'animal a raçine,
-    La plante comme en rond de soymême se meut,
-    L'animal a des pieds, et si marcher ne peut:
-    La plante est sans rameaux, sans fruict, et sans feuillage,
-    L'animal sans amour, sans sexe, et vif lignage;
-    La plante a belles dents, paist son ventre affamè
-    Du fourrage voisin, l'animal est sémè."
-
-Joshua Sylvester, the admiring translator of Du Bartas,[11] gives the
-following version of the above lines:--
-
-  [11] 'Du Bartas: His Divine Weekes and Workes, translated and
-  dedicated to the King's most excellent Maiestie by Joshua Sylvester,
-  London. 1584.'
-
-    "Musing, anon through crooked walks he wanders,
-    Round winding rings, and intricate meanders.
-    False-guiding paths, doubtful, beguiling, strays,
-    And right-wrong errors of an endless maze;
-    Nor simply hedged with a single border
-    Of rosemary cut out with curious order
-    In Satyrs, Centaurs, Whales, and half-men-horses,
-    And thousand other counterfeited corses;
-    But with true beasts, fast in the ground still sticking
-    Feeding on grass, and th' airy moisture licking,
-    Such as those Borametz in Scythia bred
-    Of slender seeds, and with green fodder fed;
-    Although their bodies, noses, mouths, and eyes,
-    Of new-yeaned lambs have full the form and guise,
-    And should be very lambs, save that for foot
-    Within the ground they fix a living root
-    Which at their navel grows, and dies that day
-    That they have browzed the neighbouring grass away.
-    Oh! wondrous nature of God only good,
-    The beast hath root, the plant hath flesh and blood.
-    The nimble plant can turn it to and fro,
-    The nummed beast can neither stir nor goe,
-    The plant is leafless, branchless, void of fruit,
-    The beast is lustless, sexless, fireless, mute:
-    The plant with plants his hungry paunch doth feede,
-    Th' admired beast is sowen a slender seed."
-
-About the middle of the seventeenth century very little belief in the
-story of the "Scythian Lamb" remained amongst men of letters, although
-it continued to be a subject of discussion and research for at least
-a hundred and fifty years later.
-
-[Illustration: FIG. 3.--ADAM AND EVE ADMIRING THE PLANTS IN THE GARDEN
-OF EDEN. THE "VEGETABLE LAMB" IN THE BACKGROUND.
-
-_Fac-simile of the Frontispiece of Parkinson's "Paradisus"_]
-
-Athanasius Kircher, Professor of Mathematics at Avignon, who wrote[12]
-in 1641, after following the error of his predecessors of quoting
-Scaliger as a believer in the myth, says:--
-
-  [12] '_Magnes; sive de arte magneticâ opus tripartitum_,' p. 730.
-
-"Some authors have regarded it as an animal, some as a plant; whilst
-others have classed it as a true zoophyte. In order not to multiply
-miracles, we assert that it is a plant. Though its form be that of a
-quadruped, and the juice beneath its woolly covering be blood which
-flows if an incision be made in its flesh, these things will not move
-us. It will be found to be a plant."
-
-This unwavering prediction has been fulfilled. But the story had to pass
-through many vicissitudes of acceptance and disbelief before this
-decision of Kircher was unanimously admitted to be correct. It seems to
-have been the fate of this curious fable, through the whole period of
-its history, that no sooner has a ray of some author's common sense
-penetrated the mist of superstition by which it was surrounded than it
-has been again befogged by the ignorant credulity of the next writer on
-the subject.
-
-Jans Janszoon Strauss, a Dutchman, better known as Jean de Struys, who
-travelled through many countries, and amongst them Tartary, from 1647 to
-1672, describes[13] this vegetable wonder. But he was an uneducated and
-credulous man, and his account of it is little more than a repetition of
-the errors and fallacies of former centuries concerning it, rendered
-still more incomprehensible by his having confused with its "very white
-down, as soft as silk," the Astrachan lamb-skins, which were then, and
-are still, a well-known article of commerce. He says:--
-
-  [13] '_Voyages de Jean de Struys en Moscovie, en Tartarie, et en
-  Perse_,' chap. xii. p. 167. Amsterdam. 1681. Also an English
-  translation, "done out of Dutch," by John Morrison. London. 1684. See
-  Appendix E.
-
-"On the west side of the Volga is a great dry and waste heath, called
-the Step. On this heath is a strange kind of fruit found, called
-'Baromez' or 'Barnitsch,' from the word 'Boran,' which is "a Lamb" in
-the Russian tongue, because of its form and appearance much resembling a
-sheep, having head, feet and tail. Its skin is covered with a down very
-white and as soft as silk. The Tartars hold this in great esteem, and it
-is sold for a high price. I have myself paid five or six roubles for one
-of these skins, and doubled my money when I sold it again. The greater
-number of persons have them in their houses, where I have seen many.
-That which caused me to observe it with greater attention was that I had
-seen one of these fruits among the curiosities in the house of the
-celebrated Mr. Swammerdam, in Amsterdam, whose museum is full of the
-rarest things in Nature from distant and foreign lands. This precious
-plant was given to him by a sailor who had been formerly a slave in
-China. He found it growing in a wood, and brought away sufficient of its
-skin to make an under-waistcoat. The description he gave of it did very
-much agree with what the inhabitants of Astrachan informed me of it. It
-grows upon a low stalk, about two and a half feet high, some higher, and
-is supported just at the navel. The head hangs down, as if it pastured
-or fed on the grass, and when the grass decays it perishes: but this I
-ever looked upon as ridiculous; although when I suggested that the
-languishing of the plant might be caused by some temporary want of
-moisture, the people asseverated to me by many oaths that they have
-often, out of curiosity, made experience of that by cutting away the
-grass, upon which it instantly fades away. Certain it is that there is
-nothing which is more coveted by wolves than this, and the inward parts
-of it are more congeneric with the anatomy of a lamb than mandrakes are
-with men. However, what I might further say of this fruit, and what I
-believe of the wonderful operations of a secret sympathy in Nature, I
-shall rather keep to myself than aver, or impose upon the reader with
-many other things which I am sensible would appear incredible to those
-who had not seen them."
-
-The next traveller, in order of date, who made the Tartarian Lamb the
-object of his investigations was Dr. Engelbrecht Kaempfer, who, in 1683,
-accompanied an embassy to Persia, and was appointed Surgeon to the Dutch
-East India Company two years later. He reported, on his return, that he
-had searched "_ad risum et nauseam_" for this "zoophyte feeding on
-grass," that there was nothing in the country where it was believed to
-grow that was called "Borametz," except the ordinary sheep, and that all
-accounts of a sheep growing upon a plant were mere fiction and fable.
-"The word 'Borametz,'" he says,[14] "is a corruption of the Russian
-'Boranetz,' in Polish 'Baranak,' the diminutive of which, 'Baran,' is
-Sclavonic. In such a case it signifies 'a sheep.' But," he continues,
-"there is in some of the provinces near the Caspian Sea a breed of sheep
-totally different from those with which we are commonly acquainted, and
-highly valued for the elegance of the skin, which is used in various
-articles of clothing by the Tartars and Persians. For the magnates and
-the rich who desire a material superior to that worn by the general
-population, the skins of the youngest lambs are preserved, the fleeces
-of these being much softer that those of the older ones, and the younger
-the animal from which they are taken the more costly are they." He then
-refers to the barbarous custom of killing the ewes before the time of
-natural parturition to obtain possession of the immature fleece of the
-unborn lamb, and says, correctly, that the earlier the stage of
-pregnancy in which this operation is performed the finer and softer is
-the fur of the f[oe]tal skin, and the lighter and closer are the little
-curls for which it is chiefly prized. The pelt, also, is so thin that it
-is scarcely heavier than a membrane, and, in drying, it frequently
-shrinks so as to lose all similitude to the skin of a lamb, and assumes
-a form which might lead the ignorant and credulous to believe that it
-was a woolly gourd. He, therefore, conjectures that some of these dried
-and shrunken skins may have been placed in museums as examples of the
-fleece of the "Tartarian Lamb," under the supposition that they were of
-vegetable origin.
-
-  [14] '_Am[oe]nitatum Exoticarum politico-physico-medicarum
-  fasciculi_,' x., lib. 3, obs. 1. Lemgo, 1712. Kaempfer's MSS. and
-  collections were acquired by Sir Hans Sloane, and were deposited in
-  the British Museum.
-
-Kaempfer's suggestions were ingenious, though his theory was erroneous.
-But, although he rather impeded than assisted in the correct
-identification of the object of discussion, he, at least, helped to
-discredit the myth, which he declared to be one of those "received with
-favour by the superstitious, and which when once they have found a
-writer to describe them, however incorrectly, please the many, obtain
-numerous adherents, and become respectable by age."
-
-[Illustration: FIG. 4.--RHIZOME OF A FERN, SHAPED BY THE CHINESE TO
-REPRESENT A TAN-COLOURED DOG, AND LAID BEFORE THE ROYAL SOCIETY BY SIR
-HANS SLOANE AS A SPECIMEN OF THE "BAROMETZ," OR "TARTARIAN LAMB."
-
-_From the 'Philosophical Transactions,' vol. xx. p. 861._]
-
-An important chapter in the history of this curious fiction was reached
-when, in 1698, Sir Hans Sloane[15] laid before the Royal Society an
-object which has ever since been generally regarded as a specimen of the
-strange natural production about which so much mystery had existed,
-so many outrageous stories had been told, and on which so much learned
-discussion had been expended. His description of it is printed in the
-Society's Transactions, and is as follows:--
-
-  [15] Philosophical Transactions, vol. xx. p. 861; and Lowthorp's
-  Abridgment of the Phil. Trans. vol. ii. p. 649.
-
-"The figure (fig. 4) represents what is commonly, but falsely, in India,
-called 'the Tartarian Lamb,' sent down from thence by Mr. Buckley.[16]
-This was more than a foot long, as big as one's wrist, having seven
-protuberances, and towards the end some foot-stalks about three or four
-inches long, exactly like the foot-stalks of ferns, both without and
-within. Most part of this was covered with a down of a dark yellowish
-snuff colour, some of it a quarter of an inch long. This down is
-commonly used for spitting of blood, about six grains going to a dose,
-and three doses pretended to cure such a hæmorrhage. In Jamaica are many
-scandent and tree ferns which grow to the bigness of trees, and have
-such a kind of _lanugo_ on them, and some of the capillaries have
-something like it. It seemed to be shaped by art to imitate a lamb, the
-roots or climbing parts being made to resemble the body, and the extant
-foot-stalks the legs. This down is taken notice of by Dr. Merret at the
-latter end of Dr. Grew's Mus. Soc. Reg. by the name of 'Poco Sempie,' a
-'golden moss,' and is there said to be a cordial. I have been assured by
-Mr. Brown, who has made very good observations in the East Indies, that
-he has been told by those who lived in China that this down or hair is
-used by them for the stopping of blood in fresh wounds, as cob-webs are
-with us, and that they have it in so great esteem that few houses are
-without it; but on trials I have made of it, though I may believe it
-innocent, yet I am sure it is not infallible."
-
-  [16] This specimen evidently came from China; for I find a record that
-  at the date of Sir Hans Sloane's paper "Mr. Buckley, Chief Surgeon at
-  Fort St. George, in the East Indies, presented to the Royal Society a
-  cabinet containing Chinese surgical and other instruments and
-  simples."
-
-Sir Hans Sloane had, it is true, clearly perceived the nature of the
-specimen sent to the Royal Society by Mr. Buckley, and had correctly
-identified it as a portion of one of the arborescent ferns; but on the
-question whether he had discovered the right interpretation of the
-puzzling enigma I shall have more to say presently. The object figured
-seems to have been regarded by many of his contemporaries as so
-insufficient to meet the requirements of the oft-told story of the
-plant-animal, and so unsatisfactory an explanation of it, that every one
-who subsequently had an opportunity of visiting Tartary still felt it to
-be his duty to make enquiries concerning the famous prodigy of that
-country.
-
-Accordingly, we find that John Bell, of Autermony, availed himself of
-the opportunity afforded him by a diplomatic journey to Persia,[17] in
-1715-1722, to endeavour, whilst in Tartary, to obtain authentic
-information respecting the "Vegetable Lamb." He found that nothing was
-known of it in the country where it was supposed to be indigenous, and
-thus writes of it:--
-
-  [17] 'Travels from St. Petersburg in Russia to various parts of Asia,
-  in 1716, 1719, 1722, &c., by John Bell, of Autermony. Dedicated to the
-  Governor, Court of Assistants, and Freemen of the Russia Company.
-  London. 1764.' See Appendix F.
-
-"Before I leave Astracan, it may be proper to rectify a mistaken opinion
-which I have observed to occur in grave German authors, who, in treating
-of the remarkable things of this country relate that there grows in this
-desart, or stepp adjoining to Astracan, in some plenty, a certain shrub
-or plant called in the Russian language 'Tartasky Borashka,' _i.e._
-'Tartarian Lamb,' with the skins of which the caps of the Armenians,
-Persians, Tartars, &c., are faced. They also write that the 'Tartashky
-Borashka' partakes of animal, as well as vegetative life, and that it
-eats up and devours all the grass and weeds within its reach. Though it
-may be thought that an opinion so very absurd could find no credit with
-people of the meanest understanding, yet I have conversed with some who
-were much inclined to believe it, so very prevalent is the prodigious
-and absurd with some part of mankind. In search of this wonderful plant
-I walked many a mile accompanied by Tartars who inhabit these desarts;
-but all I could find out were some dry bushes, scattered here and there,
-which grow on a single stalk with a bushy top of a brownish colour: the
-stalk is about eighteen inches high, the top consisting of sharp prickly
-leaves. It is true that no grass or weeds grow within the circle of its
-shade--a property natural to many other plants, here and elsewhere.
-After a careful enquiry of the more sensible and experienced among the
-Tartars, I found they laughed at it as a ridiculous fable."
-
-Bell further says:--
-
-"In Astracan they have large quantities of lamb-skins, grey and black,
-some waved and others curled, all naturally and very pretty, having a
-fine gloss, especially the waved, which at a small distance appear like
-the richest watered tabby:[18] they are much esteemed, and are much used
-for the lining of coats and the turning up of caps, in Persia, Russia,
-and other parts. The best of these are brought from Bucharia, China, and
-the countries adjacent, and are taken from the ewe's belly after she
-hath been killed, or the lamb is killed immediately after it is lambed,
-for such a skin is equal in value to the sheep. The Kalmuks and those
-Tartars who inhabit the desert in the neighbourhood of Astracan have
-also lamb-skins which are applied to the same purpose, but the wool of
-these being rougher and more hairy, they are inferior to those of
-Bucharia and China both in gloss and beauty, and also in the dressing;
-consequently in value. I have known one single lamb-skin from Bucharia
-sold for five or six shillings sterling, when one of these would not
-yield two shillings."
-
-  [18] A rich watered silk: from the French "_tabis_"; Italian,
-  "_tabi_"; Persian, "_retabi_."
-
-Bell had sufficient discrimination to see that these Astracan lamb-skins
-were in no way connected with the fable of the "Borametz," and thus
-avoided the error of Kaempfer, who regarded them as having given rise to
-the reports of the existence of that marvellous "animal-plant."
-
-The Abbé Chappe-d'Auteroche, during his visit to Tartary,[19] about half
-a century later than John Bell, sought for the "Scythian Lamb" with
-equal earnestness and with similar want of success.
-
-  [19] 'Voyage en Sibérie,' Paris. 1768.
-
-Long, however, before the result of the investigations of these two
-travellers had been made known, a second manipulated fern-root, similar
-to that described by Sir Hans Sloane, had been subjected to the scrutiny
-of another keen and scientific observer.
-
-[Illustration: FIG. 5.--ROUGH MODEL OF A TAN-COLOURED DOG, SHAPED BY THE
-CHINESE FROM THE RHIZOME OF A FERN, AND SUBMITTED TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY
-BY DR. BREYN AS A SPECIMEN OF THE "SCYTHIAN VEGETABLE LAMB."
-
-_From the 'Philosophical Transactions,' No. 390._]
-
-In September, 1725, Dr. John Philip Breyn, of Dantzic, addressed to the
-Royal Society of London an important communication in Latin on this
-subject,[20] in which he expressed his complete disbelief in the old
-story, and described a specimen of the "Borametz" (as he believed it
-to be) which had fallen into his hands, and which had led him,
-independently, to the same conclusion as that arrived at by Sir Hans
-Sloane, of whose observations, he says, he was unaware when his own
-memoranda were written. Commencing by quoting the maxim, "_Non fingendum
-sed inveniendum quid Natura faciat aut ferat_," he urges upon all who
-search for the hidden treasures of Nature, or who desire to discover her
-secrets, to bear in mind that golden axiom that "the works and
-productions of Nature should be discovered, not invented," and remarks
-that, if the older writers had adhered to this, Natural History, great
-and honourable in itself, would not have been tarnished by so many silly
-fables like that of the "Scythian Lamb." He directs attention to the
-fact that none of those who have described this plant-animal are able to
-say that they ever saw it growing; quotes Kaempfer's interpretation of
-the origin of the report, namely the Astrachan lamb-skins of commerce,
-and hesitates to regard the object in his possession as the key of the
-problem. That he had grave and sufficient reasons for his doubts upon
-this point will be seen from his interesting description of the
-curiosity referred to. He says:--
-
-  [20] '_Dissertiuncula de Agno Vegetabili Scythico, Borametz vulgo
-  dicto._' Phil. Trans., vol. xxxiii. p. 353, 1725; and also in Martyn's
-  Abridgment of the Phil. Trans., vol. vi. p. 317.
-
-"A certain learned and observant man, passing through our city on his
-return from a journey through Muscovy, enriched my museum with, amongst
-other natural curiosities, one of these 'Scythian Lambs,' which he
-declared to be the genuine Borametz. It was about six inches in length,
-and had a head, ears, and four legs. Its colour was that of iron-rust,
-and it was covered all over with a kind of down, like the fibres of
-silk-plush, except upon the ears and legs, which were bare, and were of
-a somewhat darker tawny hue. On careful examination of it, I discovered
-that it was not an animal production, nor yet a fruit, but either the
-thick creeping root, or the climbing stem, of some plant, which by
-obstetric art had acquired the form of a quadruped animal. For the four
-legs, which looked as if the feet had been cut off from them, were so
-many stalks which had supported leaves, as were also those which formed
-the ears, and which more nearly resembled horns. The fibres emerging
-from these, by which, like other plants, this root or stalk had conveyed
-nutriment, left no doubt upon this point. Close inspection also showed
-that one of the front legs had been artificially inserted, and that the
-head and neck were not of one continuous substance with the body, but
-had been very cleverly and neatly joined on to it. In fact, this root,
-or stem, had been skilfully manipulated into the form of a lamb in the
-same artful manner as the little figures of men, which, it was said,
-shrieked and dropped human blood when drawn from the ground, were formed
-from the roots of the mandragore and bryony."
-
-Dr. Breyn added that there remained in his mind some doubt as to the
-plant from which this burlesque of nature and art was fabricated, until
-the similarity of its ferruginous silky fibres to those of some of the
-capillaries suggested the thought that it must be a portion of some
-exotic fern. As to the particular species to which it belonged he was
-unable to pronounce an authoritative opinion, but, hoping in the course
-of time to receive more certain information concerning it, he would
-merely say that he believed it was of a peculiar species found in
-Tartary, and up to that date undescribed.
-
-Dr. Breyn's confirmation of Sir Hans Sloane's identification of the
-"Scythian Lamb" as the stem or rootlet of a fern artificially and
-cleverly manipulated was a crushing blow to the already weakened fable.
-Unfortunately, however, the conclusion thus arrived at was utterly
-misleading, though it not only satisfied his contemporaries, but has
-ever since--even to the present day--been universally accepted as the
-correct interpretation of the problem. The injurious result was, that,
-as the question appeared to have been set at rest, enquiry ceased, and
-for nearly sixty years afterwards no more was heard of the "Vegetable
-Lamb."
-
-Towards the close of the century two eminent botanists, who were, of
-course, well acquainted with the specimens that had been described by
-Sir Hans Sloane and Dr. Breyn, were constrained in writing of the poetry
-of their science to make the legendary "Borametz" their theme.
-
-Dr. Erasmus Darwin, in 1781, contributed to the literature of the
-subject the following lines[21]:--
-
-  [21] 'The Botanic Garden.' A poem in two parts; with philosophical
-  notes. London. 1781.
-
-    "E'en round the Pole the flames of love aspire,
-    And icy bosoms feel the secret fire,
-    Cradled in snow, and fanned by Arctic air,
-    Shines, gentle Borametz, thy golden hair;
-    Rooted in earth, each cloven foot descends,
-    And round and round her flexile neck she bends,
-    Crops the grey coral moss, and hoary thyme,
-    Or laps with rosy tongue the melting rime;
-    Eyes with mute tenderness her distant dam,
-    And seems to bleat--a 'vegetable lamb.'"
-
-Dr. Erasmus Darwin appears to have bestowed "golden hair" upon his
-Borametz, to assimilate it to the fern-root toys that were regarded as
-its prototypes; but as the fern of which they were made is a native of
-Southern China, and as no author has described the lamb-plant as being
-found in a cold climate, his authority and his motive for locating it in
-an arctic region are alike inexplicable.
-
-Dr. De la Croix, the other botanical author above referred to, extolled,
-in 1791, the fabulous animal-plant in a Latin poem[22] which Bishop
-Atterbury characterized as "excellent, and approaching very near to the
-versification of Virgil's 'Georgics.'"
-
-  [22] 'Connubia Florum, Latino Carmine Demonstrata.' Bath. 1791.
-
-                                "Qui Caspia sulcant
-    Æquora, sive legant spumosa Boristhenis ora
-    Sive petant Asiam velis, et Colchica regna,
-    Hinc atque inde stupent visu mirabile monstrum:
-    Surgit humo Borames. Præcelso in stipite fructus
-    Stat quadrupes. Olli vellus. Duo cornua fronte
-    Lanea, nec desunt oculi; rudis accola credit
-    Esse animal, dormire die, vigilare per umbram,
-    Et circum exesis pasci radicitus herbis:
-    Carnibus Ambrosiæ sapor est, succique rubentes
-    Posthabeat quibus alma suum Burgundia Nectar;
-    Atque loco si ferre pedem Natura dedisset,
-    Balatu si posset opem implorare voracis
-    Ora lupi contra, credas in stirpe sedere
-    Agnum equitem, gregibusque agnorum albescere colles."
-
-As this has not been "done into English" (to use an old phrase), I
-venture to offer the following translation of it:--
-
-    "The traveller who ploughs the Caspian wave
-    For Asia bound, where foaming breakers lave
-    Borysthenes' wild shores, no sooner lands
-    Than gazing in astonishment he stands;
-    For in his path he sees a monstrous birth,
-    The Borametz arises from the earth:
-    Upon a stalk is fixed a living brute,
-    A rooted plant bears quadruped for fruit,
-    It has a fleece, nor does it want for eyes,
-    And from its brows two woolly horns arise.
-    The rude and simple country people say
-    It is an animal that sleeps by day
-    And wakes at night, though rooted to the ground,
-    To feed on grass within its reach around.
-    The flavour of Ambrosia its flesh
-    Pervades; and the red nectar, rich and fresh,
-    Which vineyards of fair Burgundy produce
-    Is less delicious than its ruddy juice.
-    If Nature had but on it feet bestowed,
-    Or with a voice to bleat the lamb endowed,
-    To cry for help against the threat'ning fangs
-    Of hungry wolves; as on its stalk it hangs,
-    Seated on horseback it might seem to ride,
-    Whit'ning with thousands more the mountain side."
-
-[Illustration: FIG. 6.--THE "BORAMETZ," OR "SCYTHIAN LAMB."
-
-_From De la Croix's 'Connubia Florum.'_
-
-The central figure is a copy of Zahn's picture of the fabulous
-plant-animal; the other two are taken from fern-root specimens supposed
-to be "Vegetable Lambs."]
-
-We must now leave the poetical view of the subject, and come to facts.
-
-The substance of which the artificial animals exhibited by Sir Hans
-Sloane and Dr. Breyn were constructed is the long root-stock of a fern
-of the genus _Dicksonia_, of which there are from thirty to thirty-five
-species, varying greatly in size, in their mode of growth, and in the
-cutting of their fronds. Some of them, such as _D. antarctica_, a native
-of Australia and New Zealand, often seen in our greenhouses, are
-tree-like in habit, having stems from ten to forty feet in height, and
-fronds two or three yards in length, and two feet or more across; whilst
-others have root-stocks creeping along the surface of the ground. The
-genus is most fully represented in tropical America and Polynesia: one
-species extends as far north as the United States and Canada, and
-another was introduced into this country from St. Helena. In some
-species, such as _D. Molluccensis_, from Java, the stems are furnished
-with strong hooked prickles; in others they are densely clad at the base
-with a thick coat of yellow-brown hairs, which shine almost like
-burnished gold. The stems of _D. Sellowiana_, from tropical America, are
-so thickly clad with long fibrous hairs, changing to brown or nearly
-black, that it has been said they precisely resemble the thighs of the
-howling monkeys.[23]
-
-  [23] See 'European Ferns,' by James Britten, F.L.S.; with coloured
-  illustrations from Nature, by Dr. Blair, F.L.S. Cassell. London.--A
-  work full of information on the culture, classification, and history
-  of ferns. I am indebted to it for many of the details here given of
-  the economic value of ferns.
-
-The species of _Dicksonia_ which has been supposed to have given origin
-to the fable of the "Scythian Lamb" has, from that circumstance,
-received the name of _Barometz_. It was formerly known as _Cibotium
-glaucescens_. It was introduced into cultivation in conservatories in
-this country about the year 1830, and was shortly afterwards described
-as _Cibotium barometz_, but the genus _Cibotium_ is now generally united
-with _Dicksonia_. Its long caudex, or root-stock, creeps over the
-surface of the ground in the same manner as that of the better known
-"Hare's-foot" fern, _Davallia Canariensis_, and this is covered with
-long silky hairs, or scales, which look something like wool when old and
-dry. These hairs or scales have been sometimes used as a styptic in
-Germany, and also, very commonly, in China, as related to Sir Hans
-Sloane by Dr. Brown. The similar hairs of other species of _Dicksonia_,
-natives of the Sandwich Islands, are exported to the extent of many
-thousands of pounds weight annually under the name of "Pulu," and are
-used in the stuffing of mattrasses, cushions, &c. The hairs of _D.
-culcita_ are similarly utilised in Madeira. No more than two or three
-ounces of hair are yielded by each plant, and it is reckoned that about
-four years must elapse before another gathering can be obtained.
-
-The rhizomes and stems of many ferns abound in starch, and have a
-commercial value, either as medicine or food. The soft mucilaginous pith
-of _Cyathea medullaris_, one of the large tree-ferns of New Zealand, was
-formerly eaten by the natives. It is of a reddish colour, and, when
-baked, acquires a somewhat pungent flavour. In New Zealand ferns seem to
-be in some repute for their edible properties, for the large scaly
-rhizomes of _Marattia fraxinea_, and those of another fern, _Pteris
-esculenta_, nearly allied to our common bracken, _P. aquilina_, are also
-eaten by the Maoris. The natives bake them in ashes, peel them with
-their teeth, and eat them with meat, as we do bread; and sometimes pound
-them between stones, in order to extract the nutritious matter, the
-woody part being rejected as useless. In Nepaul, the rhizomes of
-_Nephrolepis tuberosa_ are similarly prepared for food; and in New
-Caledonia the mucilaginous matter of _Cyathea vieillardii_ is obtained
-from incisions made in the stem, or at the base of the fronds. The
-succulent fronds of the little water-fern, _Ceratopteris thalictroides_,
-are boiled and eaten as a vegetable by the poorer classes in the Indian
-Archipelago. The young shoots of the handsome tree-fern, _Angiopteris
-evecta_, are eaten in the Society Islands, and its large rhizome, which
-is in great part composed of mucilage, yields, when dried, a kind of
-flour. In the same islands the young fronds of _Helminthostachys
-limulata_, the "Balabala" of the Fiji Islands, are eaten in times of
-scarcity; and the soft scales covering the _stipes_ of the fronds are
-used by the white settlers for stuffing pillows and cushions in
-preference to feathers, because they do not become heated, and are thus
-more comfortable in a sultry climate. In New South Wales, the thick
-rhizome of _Blechnum cartilagineum_ is much eaten by the natives. It is
-first roasted and then beaten, so as to break away the woody fibre: it
-is said to taste like a waxy potato.
-
-By skilful treatment the inhabitants of Southern China occasionally
-converted the thick root-stock of one of these tree-ferns, "_Dicksonia
-barometz_," into a rough semblance of a quadruped, which quadruped, by a
-foregone conclusion, was supposed to be a lamb. They removed entirely
-the fronds that grew upward from the rhizome, excepting four, and these
-four they trimmed down until only about four inches of each stalk was
-left. The object thus shaped being turned upside down, the root-stock
-represented the body of the animal, and was supported by the four
-inverted stalks of the fronds, as upon four legs. If the specimen had an
-insufficient number of stalks growing from it to make the four legs,
-others were artificially and neatly affixed to it; ears were similarly
-provided, and, if necessary, the trunk was fitted with a head and neck
-made from another root-stock.
-
-So far, well! The identification of the material of which these
-imitations of four-legged animals were fashioned as the rhizome and
-frond-stalks of a tree-fern is complete, and perfectly satisfactory.
-But, having given to these root-stocks of tree-ferns the full benefit of
-an acknowledgment of the economic uses that have been made of them in
-various ways and in different localities, and having frankly stated the
-still accepted theory of their connection with the myth of the
-"Vegetable Lamb of Scythia," I have to express my very decided opinion
-that they and the "lambs" (?) made from them had no more to do with the
-origin of the fable of the "_Barometz_" than the artificial mermaids so
-cleverly made by the Japanese have had to do with the origin of the
-belief in fish-tailed human beings and divinities. In the first place,
-as we shall presently see, these manipulated ferns were not intended by
-those who fashioned them to resemble lambs at all. Secondly, if they had
-been intended to represent the lamb of the fable, they could have been,
-like the Japanese mermaids, only the outcome and illustration of the
-legend--not the objects which first gave rise to it. Neither the one nor
-the other of these counterfeit fabrications appears to have been ever
-common; and neither was certainly manufactured in sufficient numbers,
-nor distributed so abundantly and completely over the habitable globe,
-as to have laid the foundation of a myth which in the one case was
-universally believed,[24] and in the other attracted attention all over
-Europe and Western Asia, and also in Egypt. Very few of the Japanese
-artificial mermaids have been seen in this country, though they have
-been eagerly sought for, and the fern-"lambs" that have been brought to
-England may be counted on one's fingers.[25]
-
-  [24] See the Chapter on "Mermaids" by the Author in 'Sea Fables
-  Explained,' one of the Handbooks issued by the Authorities of the
-  Great International Fisheries Exhibition of 1883. London. Clowes and
-  Sons, Limited.
-
-  [25] I know of only four--(though, of course, there may be others, of
-  which I shall be glad to receive information)--namely, one in the
-  Botanical department of the British Museum; another in the Museum of
-  the Royal College of Surgeons; the specimen sent from India by Mr.
-  Buckley to the Royal Society in 1698; and that described by Dr. Breyn
-  in 1725. Of the origin of the first-mentioned nothing is known, though
-  it is apparently the one figured by John and Andrew Rymsdyk, in their
-  '_Museum Britannicum_' (1778, plate xv.), as one of the curious
-  objects in the British Museum. Of the second we only know that it was
-  presented to the College of Surgeons by Mr. Quekett--the habitat of
-  the fern of which it is composed being erroneously given in the
-  Catalogue (No. 177 of "Plants and Invertebrates") as "Plains of
-  Tartary," the supposed home of the mythical lamb, but where the fern
-  in question never grew. That sent to England by Mr. Buckley, and which
-  was the subject of Sir Hans Sloane's paper in 1698, seems to have been
-  lost or mislaid. Whether it remained in the possession of the Royal
-  Society, or was placed by Sir Hans Sloane in his own collection, it
-  ought to be in the British Museum. But nothing is known of it there,
-  nor of the cabinet of surgical instruments and appliances in which it
-  arrived. I have endeavoured to trace it; but although, as usual, I
-  have met with every kind assistance and courtesy from the heads of
-  departments, I have been unsuccessful.
-
-  Sir Hans Sloane, who died in 1753, bequeathed his valuable collection
-  and library to the nation on the condition that £20,000 should be paid
-  to his executors for the benefit of his daughters. The Government
-  raised the necessary funds by a guinea lottery, and sufficient money
-  was thus obtained to purchase also (for £10,500) Montague House, in
-  Bloomsbury, which then became the British Museum. When the Royal
-  Society removed from their old premises, in Crane Court, to Somerset
-  House in 1780 they also gave the contents of their cabinets to the
-  National Collection, but many of these, and amongst them this
-  fern-root animal, cannot be found.
-
-  Dr. Breyn, of Dantzic, no doubt retained the specimen which he
-  described, and it is probably in some continental collection.
-
-  I know, therefore, of only two of these so-called "lambs" extant in
-  this country--one in the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, and
-  the other in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. No history
-  of either of these has been preserved.
-
-Further, it is a fact which seems to have been strangely overlooked,
-that these tree-ferns, with the creeping root-stocks, do not grow in
-Tartary. The particular species of _Dicksonia_ from which the
-doll-"lambs" were made is a native of Southern China, Assam, and the
-Malayan peninsula and islands.[26] And we have conclusive evidence, in
-addition to the report made by Mr. Buckley to the Royal Society (p. 27),
-that these playthings themselves were of Chinese workmanship.
-
-  [26] '_Synopsis Filicum_,' by Sir W. J. Hooker and J. G. Baker, F.L.S.
-  1863. Art. "Dicksonia barometz."
-
-Juan de Loureiro, an accomplished Portuguese botanist and Fellow of the
-Royal Society of Lisbon, who lived and laboured as a Catholic missionary
-for more than thirty years in Cochin China, and, afterwards, for three
-years in China, thus writes[27]:--
-
-  [27] _Flora Cochinchinensis_, tom. i. p. 675. Lisbon. 1790.
-
-"The _Polypodium borametz_ grows in hilly woods in China and Cochin
-China. Many authors have written of the Scythian Lamb, or Borametz--most
-of them fabulously. Ours is not a fruit, but a root, which is easily
-shaped by the help of a little art into the form of _a small rufous dog,
-by which name, and not by that of a 'lamb,' it is called by the
-Chinese_."
-
-Loureiro describes the cutting off the stalks to form the legs, the
-fixing on of smaller ones as ears, and other particulars of the rude
-manufacture of these fern-root dogs, as witnessed by himself. The common
-name of these toys in China--"Cau-tich," and in Cochin China,
-"Kew-tsie," both represent a "tan-coloured dog."
-
-It must also be borne in mind that the lamb-plant was represented as
-springing from a seed like that of a melon, but rounder, and that the
-natives of the country where it grew planted these seeds. It was
-therefore a cultivated plant. The lamb, it was also stated, was
-contained within the fruit or seed-capsule of the plant; and when this
-fruit, or seed-pod, was ripe it burst open, and the little lamb within
-it was disclosed. The wool of this lamb was described by various writers
-as being "very white," "as white as snow," whereas these root-stocks of
-ferns bear no resemblance to a lamb in their natural condition; and when
-they have been deftly trimmed into shape the hairs or scales upon them
-are tawny orange, matching better with the "tan" markings of a dog,
-which they were intended to represent, than with the soft, white fleece
-of a young lamb.
-
-Therefore, even if I had no better explanation to offer, I should be led
-to the conclusion that the identification of these _tawny_ toy-_dogs_,
-made in _China_ from the _root_ of a _wild_ fern, the spores of which
-are _as small as dust_, with the "Vegetable _Lambs_" of _Scythia_, whose
-_white_ fleeces were found within the ripe and opening _fruit_ of a
-_cultivated_ plant, raised from _a large seed_, was obviously erroneous,
-and that the origin of the rumour must be sought for elsewhere.
-
-The plant that set all Europe talking of the lambs that grew in fruits
-and on stalks of plants somewhere in Scythia was one of far higher
-importance and value to mankind than the childish knick-knacks made for
-amusement out of the creeping root-stocks of ferns. These and the
-curly-fleeced progeny of the poor ewes of Astrachan were lambs that
-crossed the track of the first, lost lamb, and led those searching for
-it into the mistake of following their respective trails, whilst the
-original "Scythian Lamb" escaped from sight.
-
-Tracing the growth and transition of this story of the lamb-plant from a
-truthful rumour of a curious fact into a detailed history of an absurd
-fiction, I have no doubt whatever that it originated in early
-descriptions of the cotton plant, and the introduction of cotton from
-India into Western Asia and the adjoining parts of Eastern Europe.
-
-Herodotus, writing (B.C. 445) of the usages of the people of India, says
-(lib. iii. cap. 106) of this cotton:--"Certain trees bear for their
-fruit fleeces surpassing those of sheep in beauty and excellence, and
-the natives clothe themselves in cloths made therefrom."
-
-In the 47th chapter of the same book, Herodotus describes a corselet
-sent by Aahmes (or Amasis) II., King of Egypt, to Sparta as having been
-"ornamented with gold and _fleeces from the trees_"--padded with cotton,
-in fact.
-
-Ctesias, also, who was the contemporary of Herodotus, and was made
-prisoner, and kept by the King of Persia as his court physician for
-seventeen years, was acquainted with the use of a kind of wool, the
-produce of trees, for spinning and weaving amongst the natives of India,
-for he mentions in his '_Indica_' a fragment quoted by Photius,
-"tree-garments"; and that he thus referred to clothing made from these
-tree-fleeces we have the testimony of Varro:--"Ctesias says that there
-are in India _trees that bear wool_."
-
-Nearchus, the admiral of Alexander the Great, reported that "there were
-in India trees bearing, as it were, flocks or bunches of wool, and that
-the natives made of this wool garments of surpassing whiteness, or else
-their black complexions made the material appear whiter than any other."
-
-Aristobulus, another of Alexander's generals, made mention in his
-journal of the cotton plant, under the name of "the wool-bearing tree,"
-and stated that "it bore a capsule that contained seeds which were taken
-out, and that which remained was carded like wool."
-
-Strabo, who records this (lib. xv. cap. 21), referring to it in another
-paragraph, writes:--"Nearchus says that their (the natives') fine
-clothing was made from this wool, and that the Macedonians used it for
-mattresses and the stuffing of their saddles."[28]
-
-  [28] Unfortunately the Journal and Narrative of Nearchus, written B.C.
-  325-324, are lost, as are also those of Aristobulus, who seems to have
-  been a very accurate observer; and we are indebted to Strabo and
-  Arrian for the summaries and extracts from them that we possess.
-  Strabo's '_Geographia_' was completed A.D. 21, about three years
-  before his death. Fabius Arrianus wrote his '_Historia Indica_,' and
-  '_Periplus Maris Erythræi_,' which contain valuable particulars of
-  Alexander's expedition, about A.D. 131-135.
-
-Theophrastus, the disciple of Aristotle, writing about B.C. 306,
-says[29]:--
-
-  [29] '_De Historia Plantarum_,' lib. iv. cap. 4.
-
-"The trees from which the Indians make their clothes have leaves like
-those of the black mulberry, but the whole plant resembles the dog-rose.
-They are planted in rows on the plains, so as to look like vines at a
-distance."
-
-In another passage of the same book (cap. 9) he writes:--
-
-"In the Island of Tylos, which is in the Arabian Gulf,[30] the
-wool-bearing trees, which grow there abundantly, have leaves like the
-vine, but smaller. They bear no fruit, but the pod containing the wool
-is about the size of a spring apple ("[Greek: mêlon]"), whilst it is
-unripe and closed, but when it is ripe it opens: the wool is then
-gathered from it, and woven into cloths of various qualities--some
-inferior, but others of great value."
-
-  [30] Theophrastus is in error in placing Tylos in the Arabian Gulf
-  (which we now call the Red Sea); it was in the Persian Gulf, and is
-  now known as Bahrsin. The ancients, however, gave to the whole of the
-  sea between the east coast of Africa, north of Mogador, and the west
-  shores of India the name of the "Erythræan Sea," from King Erythros,
-  of whom nothing more is known than the name, which, in Greek,
-  signifies "red." From this casual meaning of the word it came to be
-  believed that the water of this sea differed in colour from that of
-  others, and that it was consequently more difficult to navigate.
-
-This description by Theophrastus is remarkably correct as applied to the
-herbaceous variety of the cotton-plant, from which the chief supply of
-cotton for spinning and weaving into cloth has always been obtained. In
-its mode of growth--branched, spreading, and flexible--it may well be
-likened to the dog-rose; and its palmate leaves bear a close resemblance
-to those of the black mulberry, which differ little from the leaves of
-some varieties of the vine. The remark relative to the mode of
-cultivation is also exactly applicable to the cotton-plant, which is set
-in rows about four feet asunder, and the plants about two feet apart, so
-that a field of it resembles a vineyard when seen from a distance.
-
-Pomponius Mela, the author next in order of time, also writes in his
-account of India[31] of the "trees that produce wool used by the natives
-for clothing."
-
-  [31] _De Situ Orbis_, lib. iii. cap. 7.
-
-Then comes Pliny, who, incompetent and worthless as a naturalist, though
-admirable as a writer, obscured this subject, as he did many others. In
-his 'Natural History'[32] he mentions cotton in four different
-paragraphs, and in every one of them inaccurately. He confuses cotton
-with flax, and the fabrics woven of it with linen, and treats of silk as
-a downy substance scraped from the leaves of trees. And, in
-transcribing, or translating, the passage from Theophrastus relating to
-the "wool-bearing trees," he distorts the author's words, and states
-that "these trees bear _gourds_ the size of a quince, which burst when
-ripe, and display balls of wool out of which the inhabitants make cloths
-like valuable linen." Pliny therefore seems to have been the author of
-the "gourd" portion of the story which afterwards obtained currency in
-Western Europe.
-
-  [32] '_Naturalis Historia_,' A.D. 77.
-
-I shall quote one more ancient mention of the "fleece-bearing plant,"
-because the author of it gives a more exact description than any
-previous writer of that portion of it from which the wool is taken.
-
-Julius Pollux, who wrote about a hundred years later than Pliny, says in
-his 'Onomasticon':--
-
-"There are also _Byssina_ and _Byssus_, a kind of flax. But among the
-Indians a sort of wool is obtained from a tree. The cloth made from this
-wool may be compared with linen, except that it is thicker. The tree
-produces a fruit most nearly resembling a walnut, but three-cleft. After
-the outer covering, which is like a walnut, has divided and become dry,
-the substance resembling wool is extracted, and is used in the
-manufacture of cloth."
-
-This remark, of the pericarp of the cotton-pod, in some species of
-_Gossypium_, being three-cleft, is in accordance with fact, and is not
-noticed by any previous writer.
-
-In tracing the development of these early and truthful accounts of the
-cotton-plant into the complete fable of the compound plant-animal, the
-"Vegetable Lamb of Scythia," we shall find it, as in the case of some
-other myths of the Middle Ages, attributable to two principal causes:--
-
-1. The misinterpretation of ambiguous or figurative language; 2. The
-similarity of appearance of two actually different and incongruous
-objects.
-
-It is a curious fact, which I believe has not hitherto been noticed in
-connection with this subject, that the Greek word "[Greek mêlon]"
-(melon), very fitly used by Theophrastus in the passage quoted (p. 48)
-to describe the form and appearance of the unripe cotton-pod, may be
-equally correctly translated "a fruit," "an apple," or "a sheep": the
-adjective "[Greek: hearinon]," which is also used, means "vernal";
-therefore the phrase may be regarded as signifying either that the
-vegetable wool was taken from a "spring apple" growing upon a tree, or
-from a "spring-sheep" (or lamb) growing upon a tree. Although I believe
-that the mistake originated, as I shall presently explain, in the actual
-and substantial resemblance between cotton wool and lamb's wool, rather
-than in the verbal identity of an appellative noun, it is not improbable
-that this ambiguous phrase of convertible interpretation may, in some
-measure, have contributed to convey, many centuries later, to readers of
-a dead language who knew nothing of the plant referred to, an erroneous
-idea of the nature of "the fleeces that grew on trees." It would seem so
-much more likely that a soft fleece of white wool should grow upon a
-young lamb yeaned in spring-time than inside a fruit like an apple in
-the partly-formed and unripe condition in which it is found in spring,
-that students in the Middle Ages, as they pondered doubtfully over this
-word of double meaning, would probably prefer the first interpretation,
-and translate the passage of Theophrastus as a statement that the wool
-was taken from a "spring-sheep," or lamb, growing upon a tree which bore
-no other fruit. It is also probable that this use of the Greek word
-"_melon_" gave rise to the report in later times that the seed of the
-plant which bore the "Vegetable Lamb" was like that of a melon or gourd.
-
-We may next take into account the prevalence amongst many tribes and
-nations in both hemispheres of the custom of using figurative language
-in relation to the objects and occurrences of their daily life.
-
-A very striking and remarkable proof is given us by Herodotus that the
-Scythians of the North-West, who carried both the cotton and the rumour
-of the lamb-plant into Muscovy, were in the habit of speaking thus
-figuratively and metaphorically. He writes (lib. iv. cap. 2):--
-
-"The part beyond the north, the Scythians say, can neither be seen nor
-passed through, by reason of the feathers shed there; for the earth and
-air are full of feathers, and it is these which interrupt the view."
-
-Further on (lib. iv. cap. 31) he also observes:--
-
-"With respect to the feathers with which the Scythians say the air is
-filled, and on account of which it is not possible either to see further
-upon the continent, or to pass through it, I entertain the following
-opinion. In the upper parts of this country it continually snows--less
-in summer than in winter, as is reasonable. Now, whoever has seen snow
-falling thick near him will know what I mean; for snow is like feathers,
-and on account of the winter being so severe the northern parts of this
-country are uninhabited. I think, then, that the Scythians and their
-neighbours call the snow feathers, comparing them together."
-
-Herodotus was, of course, right in this interpretation.
-
-Who can doubt that the people who would thus realistically describe snow
-as feathers would probably describe the white wool of the cotton-pod as
-"tree-lamb's-wool," the produce of a "lamb-plant," or "plant-lamb"?
-
-The growth and development of the story of "the Scythian Lamb" from the
-similarity of appearance of two really different objects may be best
-explained by comparing it with another Natural-history myth, which ran
-curiously parallel with it. I allude to the fable that Sir John
-Mandeville tells us he related to his Tartar acquaintances, viz. that of
-the "_Barnacle Geese_"--which has never been surpassed as a specimen of
-ignorant credulity and persistent error.
-
-From the twelfth to the end of the seventeenth century it was implicitly
-and almost universally believed that in the Western Islands of Scotland
-certain geese, of which the nesting-places were never found, instead of
-being hatched from eggs, like other birds, were bred from "shell-fish"
-which grew on trees. Upon the shores where these geese abounded, pieces
-of timber and old trunks of trees covered with barnacles were often seen
-which had been stranded by the sea. From between the partly opened
-shells of the barnacles protruded their plumose cirrhi, which in some
-degree resemble the feathers of a bird. Hence arose the belief that they
-contained real birds. The fishermen persuaded themselves that these
-birds within the shells were the geese whose origin they had been
-previously unable to discover, and that they were thus bred, instead of
-being hatched, like other birds, from eggs. As the tale spread to a
-distance, it gained by repetition, like the story of "The Three Black
-Crows" amusingly told by Dr. John Byrom.[33] The trees found upon the
-shore were soon reported to be trees growing on the shore; that which
-grew on trees people soon asserted to be the fruit of trees; and thus,
-from step to step, the story increased in wonder and obtained credit. It
-was discussed during many centuries by philosophers and men of learning,
-who, one after another, accepted the evidence in its favour, until Sir
-Robert Moray, F.R.S., in 1678, reported to the Royal Society that he had
-examined these barnacles, and that in every shell that he had opened he
-had "found a little bird--the little bill, like that of a goose; the
-eyes marked; the head, neck, breast, wings, tail, and feet formed, the
-feathers everywhere perfectly shaped and blackish-coloured, and the feet
-like those of other water-fowl." This nonsense was published in the
-'Philosophical Transactions' (No. 137, January and February, 1678) under
-the auspices of the highest representatives of science in this country.
-The old botanist Gerard had previously (in 1597) had the audacity to
-assert that he had witnessed the transformation of the "shell-fish" into
-geese.[34]
-
-  [33] See Appendix G.
-
-  [34] See 'Sea Fables Explained,' by the Author, 2nd edition, p. 114.
-  Clowes and Sons, Limited.
-
-In like manner the "wool-bearing plant" of Ctesias, Nearchus,
-Aristobulus, and Theophrastus, the plant of which Herodotus wrote that
-"it bore as its fruit fleeces which surpassed those of lambs in beauty
-and excellence," was soon reported to be "a plant bearing fruit within
-which was a little lamb having a fleece of surpassing beauty and
-excellence." As it was evident that a living lamb must take food, the
-"lytylle best" was, in the next version, kindly placed upon a stalk, and
-so balanced thereon as to be able to bend downward, and browze upon the
-surrounding herbage. Of course the lamb, if it fed on grass, must have
-digestive and other organs, like those of lambs ordinarily begotten, so
-these were liberally bestowed upon it with as much particularity as that
-exercised by Sir Robert Moray in enumerating the "parts and features"
-of the "little tree-bird."[35] The transformation of the wondrous
-"plant-animal" from "a little lamb with a white fleece disclosed by the
-bursting of a ripe seed-pod growing on a stalk" into "a lamb growing on
-a stalk attached to its navel, and browzing on the herbage within its
-reach," vastly increased the difficulty of identifying it. Like the
-barnacle geese, it was discussed by philosophers and sought for by
-travellers; but its features had been distorted beyond recognition, and,
-instead of endeavouring to find its original portrait in the pages of
-old historians and geographers, enquirers looked for fresh information
-concerning it in the misleading tales of successive travellers. At last,
-as we have seen, another "vegetable lamb" crossed the trail of the
-original lost one, in the shape of the two Chinese toy-dogs laid before
-the Royal Society by Sir Hans Sloane and Dr. Breyn. That distinguished
-body of savants unfortunately accorded their recognition to the wrongful
-claimant, and ever since then botanists and antiquarians have regarded
-the problem as solved, and have been satisfied that in these few rude
-models of "tan-coloured dogs" they have found the true and original
-"snow-white" "Vegetable Lamb of Scythia."
-
-  [35] The figures of the ancient partly human, partly piscine deities,
-  from which originated the belief in mermaids, similarly passed through
-  various mutations. The first idea was that of a man coming out of the
-  mouth of a fish. Subsequently, the form was that of a man clad in the
-  skin of a fish--wearing it as a mantle--the head of the fish covering
-  that of the man, like a cap or helmet. And so on, till a being was
-  developed the upper half of whose body was human, and the lower half,
-  from the waist downwards, that of a fish.
-
-The contented acceptance by botanists and other representatives of
-science, down to the present day, of three or four trumpery toys
-artificially and roughly fashioned by the Chinese from the rhizomes of
-a fern which does not grow in Tartary or Scythia, and brought to Europe
-by travellers at rare intervals, as sufficient to account for the origin
-of a rumour which spread from Asia all over Europe and attracted the
-attention of learned men of all countries for many centuries, is not the
-least remarkable circumstance in the history of the legend of the
-"Scythian Lamb."
-
-Well might the old historians consider worthy of record the reports they
-had heard of the existence of the "wool-bearing tree," for, as Dr. Ure
-has remarked,[36] "it would be universally regarded as a miracle of
-vegetation did not familiarity blunt the moral feelings of mankind. This
-class of plants, largely distributed over the torrid zone, affords to
-the inhabitants a spontaneous and inexhaustible supply of the clothing
-material best adapted to screen their swarthy bodies from the scorching
-sun, and to favour the cooling influence of the breeze, as well as
-cutaneous exhalation. While the tropical heats change the soft wool of
-the sheep into a harsh, scanty hair, unfit for clothing purposes, they
-cherish and ripen the vegetable wool, with its more slender and porous
-fibres, admirably suited for clothing in a hot climate, as the grosser
-and warmer animal fibres are in a cold one. No sooner does the cotton
-pod arrive at maturity than its swollen capsules burst with an elastic
-force, in gaping segments, in order, as it were, to display to the most
-careless eye their white fleecy treasure, and to invite the hand of the
-observer to pluck it from the seeds, and to work it up into a light and
-beautiful robe. Thus held forth from the extremity of every bough, by
-its resemblance to sheep's wool it could not fail to attract attention."
-
-  [36] 'The Cotton Manufacture of Great Britain,' p. 71.
-
-Such keen observers as the ancient conquerors of India would have been
-sure to notice with surprise and interest the wonderful vegetable
-product which could be compared to nothing so aptly as to the white,
-soft wool of a little lamb, to appreciate its value and usefulness, and
-to admire the fabrics manufactured from it. And, as these fabrics
-gradually found their way northward from India by the great caravan
-routes, either by Samarcand, or by the passes of the Hindu Kush, by
-Bokhara and Khiva, through Turkestan and Tartary into Russia, in one
-direction, and by Egypt to the countries on the Mediterranean in
-another, the sensation they would cause is not difficult to realise. We
-can imagine how the newly-arrived trader, as he displayed his goods,
-would be eagerly questioned by intending purchasers of the novel, soft,
-white or coloured cloths, so well suited to their requirements, as to
-the nature of the raw material of which they had been woven. We can
-picture to ourselves their astonishment when he explained to them that
-the delicate, white, flossy fibres from which his fabrics were made, of
-which he, perhaps, showed them a sample, and which looked so like lamb's
-wool, was the produce of a plant, the fruit of which burst open when it
-became ripe, and exposed to view the white wool within it. And we can
-easily understand how the fame of this spread, and was carried into
-distant lands, and how this "vegetable lamb's wool" was discussed and
-talked about in countries where it, and the yarn spun from it, and the
-cloths woven from it, had not yet penetrated.
-
-Now, let us complete our identification of the cotton-pod of India as
-"the Vegetable Lamb" of the fable by showing its right to the title of
-"the _Scythian_ Lamb."
-
-There is probably no race of men, or rather aggregate of races,
-mentioned prominently in history, of whom, and of whose country so
-little has been definitely known as of the ancient Scythians. They have
-been generally and vaguely, and, to a certain extent, correctly,
-regarded as represented in modern times by the numerous hordes of
-Tartars inhabiting the lands north of the mountains of the Caucasus, and
-part of central and northern Asia. So exclusively have they been
-identified with these tribes that the terms Tartary and Scythia have
-been looked upon as synonymous, and thus "the Scythian Lamb" has been
-called also the "Tartarian Lamb," or "the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary."
-
-Under the name of "Scythia" was included (as may be seen on any good
-classical map) a vast territory, partly in Europe and partly in Asia,
-extending from the 25th to the 116th degree of East longitude. The
-European portion of it was comparatively a small province, known as
-"Scythia Parva," and comprised those districts of Silistria and
-Bessarabia bordering the western shores of the Black Sea, south of the
-mouths of the Danube. Scythia in Asia, which was separated from Scythia
-Parva by the two Sarmatias, included the whole of Turkestan, Thibet,
-Mongolia, and Siberia. It was bounded on the West by the Ural Mountains
-and river, and extended northward through then unknown regions to the
-Arctic Circle, and southward to the Himalayas. But still further south,
-beyond the western Himalayas--the Hindu-Kush--was another part of
-Scythia, known as "Indo-Scythia." This stretched southward to the
-Erythrean Sea (the Arabian Sea), and was that part of India now called
-Scinde and the Punjab. Through it flowed the Indus and the Hydaspes, and
-it was on the banks of the latter river, at Bucephalia (either the
-present Jhelum, or Jubalpore, eighteen miles lower), that Alexander's
-admiral collected the flotilla which he conducted down the Hydaspes to
-its confluence with the Indus, and along the whole course of that great
-river, and made his way by its lower mouth into the open water of the
-Arabian Sea. Then and there it was--from the time of their arrival in
-the country, during the war with Pontus and other Indian princes, and on
-their ten months' voyage homeward--that Alexander and his commodore
-Nearchus saw the native population of Indo-Scythia "clad in garments the
-material of which was whiter than any other, or at any rate appeared so
-in contrast with their wearers' swarthy skin," and which were "made of
-the wool like that of lambs, which grew in tufts and bunches upon
-trees."
-
-Although more than two thousand years have passed since then, Nearchus's
-description of this costume--"a shirt, or tunic, reaching to the middle
-of the leg, a sheet folded about the shoulders, and a turban rolled
-round the head"--would be almost equally accurate at the present day.
-Its wearers may be congratulated that fashion has left unchanged and
-unspoiled an apparel so serviceable and well-suited to the climate of
-the country and the habits of its people!
-
-As the "fleeces of vegetable wool, softer and whiter than that of the
-lamb," came from Indo-Scythia, the supposed plant-animal that bore them
-was first called "the Scythian Lamb."
-
-As time passed on, the name of Scythia in Asia became merged in that of
-Tartary. From the time that the Mahometans became masters of Egypt and
-Constantinople, as no Christian was allowed to pass through their
-dominion to the East, intercourse with India by the two most direct
-roads ceased entirely. Cotton goods and other merchandise from India
-were therefore conveyed by the trading caravans before mentioned. The
-depôt to which they were generally forwarded was Samarcand, as was
-correctly related to Guillaume Postel by Michel, the Arabic interpreter
-(p. 13). There they met the great caravan travelling from the East into
-Russia, and, on the journey, passed through part of Scythia in Asia. In
-each district the caravan was joined by hosts of Tartar traders carrying
-with them the wool of their sheep, the hair of their goats, and the
-skins of both, the soft, curly skins of their lambs, and droves of hardy
-colts, the produce of their mares, whose milk was, and still is, to them
-as important an article of diet as that of cows is to ourselves. As the
-Tartar merchants brought with the fleeces of their sheep, goats, and
-lambs the fleeces also of "the fine white wool that grew on trees" and
-the piece-goods made from it, "the vegetable lamb" from which it was
-supposed to have been sheared became also in this manner identified with
-Tartary, in the same way as were Indian spices with "Araby," through
-which they sometimes passed in transit, but where they never grew. It
-thus became known as "the wool of the Tartarian Lamb," and travellers
-whose curiosity concerning the far-famed "zoophyte" was subsequently
-aroused sought for it in the dominions of the "Great Cham." But, just as
-when Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius II., sought in
-Scotland for the "goose-bearing tree," which he eagerly desired to see,
-upon being told that it grew much further north, complained that
-"miracles will always flee farther and farther away"; so when any
-painstaking traveller in Tartary endeavoured to investigate the subject
-of the strange "plant-animal," he was sure to learn (unless he allowed
-himself to be cunningly hoaxed by the skin of a natural lamb, or the
-fruit of another plant) that the object of his search was non-existent
-in its reputed birthplace, and that he must look for it elsewhere.
-
-Thus the story of the "Scythian" or "Tartarian Lamb" grew, and was
-exaggerated and distorted, until all traces of its origin were so
-obliterated that even men of thought and learning have been unable to
-recognise in the misleading descriptions given of it the plant which,
-excepting corn, is, perhaps, the most valuable to mankind. For, as I
-have said, it seems to me to be clear and indubitable that the fruit
-which burst when ripe and disclosed within it "a little lamb" was the
-cotton pod, and that the soft, white, delicate fleece of "the Vegetable
-Lamb of Scythia" was that which we still call "Cotton Wool."
-
-[Illustration: FIG. 7.--THE REAL "VEGETABLE LAMB"--A COTTON POD.
-
-(_Gossypium herbaceum._)]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II.
-
-THE HISTORY OF COTTON AND ITS INTRODUCTION INTO EUROPE.
-
-
-In the preceding pages I have referred to the introduction of cotton
-into the countries north and west of the Indus in so far only as the
-expressions of old writers relating to it have seemed to afford a clue
-to the origin of the fable of "the Scythian Lamb." But I venture to
-think that a brief account of its botanical affinities, and of its
-spread and distribution amongst various nations, may form an appropriate
-and acceptable sequel to the story of the wild rumours that preceded by
-many centuries its arrival in Western Europe.
-
-The cotton plant, _Gossypium_, is one of the _Malvaceæ_--allied to the
-mallow. There are several varieties of it, but only three principal
-distinctions require notice--namely, the herbaceous, the tree, and the
-shrub species. The first and most useful, _Gossypium herbaceum_, is an
-annual plant, cultivated in the United States, India, China, and other
-countries. It grows to a height of from eighteen to twenty inches, and
-has leaves, which being somewhat lobed, of a bright dark green colour,
-and marked with brownish veins, were not inaptly compared by
-Theophrastus with those of the black mulberry and the vine. Its blossoms
-expand into a pale yellow flower, and when this falls off a
-three-celled, triangular capsular pod appears. The pod increases to the
-size of a large cob-nut or small medlar, and becomes brown as the woolly
-fruit ripens. The expansion of the wool then causes the pod to burst,
-and it discloses a ball of snow-white (in some species, yellowish) down
-consisting of three locks--one in each cell--enclosing and firmly
-adhering to the seeds. As the pods ripen the cotton is gathered by hand,
-and is exposed to the sun till it is perfectly dry; the seeds are then
-separated from it, and it is packed into bales for future use or
-exportation. In the United States it is planted in rows, four feet
-asunder, and the seeds are set in holes eighteen inches apart.
-
-The shrub cotton grows in almost every country where the annual
-herbaceous cotton is found. Its duration varies according to the
-climate. In some places, as in the West Indies, it is biennial or
-triennial; in others, as in India, Egypt, &c., it lasts from six to ten
-years; in the hottest climates it is perennial; and in the cooler
-countries it becomes an annual.
-
-The tree-cotton, _Gossypium arboreum_, grows in India, Egypt, China, the
-interior and western coast of Africa, and in some parts of America. As
-the tree only attains to a height of from twelve to twenty feet, it is
-difficult to distinguish the tree cotton and the shrub cotton when
-referred to by travellers.
-
-The cotton plant, in all its varieties, requires a sandy soil. It
-flourishes on the rocky hills of Hindostan, Africa, and the West Indies,
-and will grow where the soil is too poor to produce any other valuable
-crop.
-
-Cotton has always been regarded as indigenous to India, and as the
-characteristic clothing material of that country, as flax is of Egypt,
-silk of China, and the wool of sheep and goats of Northern Asia.
-
-The uncertain nature of Hindoo chronology prevents our even guessing at
-the period when cotton was first spun and woven in India; but there is
-little doubt that it was so used from the earliest ages of Hindoo
-civilization. As Dr. Robertson remarks, in his 'Historical Disquisition
-on British India'--"Whoever attempts to trace the operations of men in
-remote times, and to mark the various steps of their progress in any
-line of exertion, will soon have the mortification to find that the
-period of authentic history is extremely limited, and if we push our
-enquiries beyond the period when written history commences we enter upon
-the region of conjecture, of fable, and of uncertainty."
-
-The earliest mention of cotton with which we are acquainted is found,
-according to Dr. Royle,[37] in the first book of the Rig Veda, Hymn 105,
-verse 8, which is supposed to have been composed fifteen centuries
-before the Christian era. It is, however, a mere allusion to "threads in
-the loom," and although it probably does refer to cotton, the evidence
-of this is only circumstantial. But in 'The Sacred Institutes of Manu,'
-which date from 800 B.C., cotton is referred to so repeatedly as to
-imply that it was in common use at that time in India. Dr. Royle says,
-on the authority of Professor Wilson, that cotton and cotton-cloth are
-mentioned in that book by the Sanscrit names "_Kurpasa_" and
-"_Karpasum_," and cotton-seeds as "_Kurpas-asthi_." The common Bengali
-name "Kupas," indicating cotton with the seed, which is still in general
-use all over India, and may even be occasionally heard in Lancashire,
-is, no doubt, derived from the Sanscrit, from which also comes the Latin
-"_carbasus_."
-
-  [37] 'On the Culture and Commerce of Cotton in India and elsewhere,'
-  by J. Forbes Royle, M.D., F.R.S. London. 1851.
-
-It is evident that the manufacture of cotton in India must date from a
-very remote period indeed, for long before the time of Herodotus the
-processes of weaving and dyeing it had attained to a degree of
-excellence which indicates considerable previous experience; and a large
-export trade in white and coloured cotton fabrics had even then been
-established.
-
-From India manufactured cotton seems to have reached Persia in very
-early times, for the word "Karpas" occurs in the book of Esther (chap.
-i. v. 6), in the description of the decorations of the palace of Shushan
-during the right royal festivities given there by King Ahasuerus, B.C.
-519. In the verse referred to we are told that there were "white, green,
-and blue hangings." The word corresponding with "green" in the Hebrew is
-"_Karpas_," in the Septuagint and Vulgate, _carbasinus_, and should be
-rendered "cotton-cloth"; so that the hangings of the palace of Ahasuerus
-were of white and blue striped cotton, such as may be seen throughout
-India at the present day. Bishop Heber describes the Hall of Audience of
-the Emperor of Delhi, as having these striped curtains hanging in
-festoons about it.
-
-Mattrasses, also, of this striped material, stuffed and padded with
-coarse cotton, are still used in India as a substitute for doors and
-window-shutters, to keep out the heat, and are known as "purdahs."
-Aristobulus reported that Susiana had when he was there "an atmosphere
-so glowing and scorching that lizards and serpents could not cross the
-streets of the city at noon quickly enough to prevent their being burned
-to death mid-way by the heat"; that "barley spread out in the sun was
-roasted, as in an oven, and hopped about" (like parched peas); and that
-"the inhabitants laid earth to the depth of three and a half feet on the
-roofs of their houses to exclude the suffocating heat," so that it is
-not improbable that these blue and white striped "purdahs" were used in
-the palace of Shushan in the time of Ahasuerus.
-
-Strabo frequently mentions this palace of Shushan, or Susa, which was in
-the province of Susis, or Susiana, at the head of the Persian Gulf. He
-tells us that when Alexander the Great became master of Persia he
-transferred to this residence of the Persian Monarchs everything that
-was precious in the land, although the palace was already almost filled
-with treasures and costly materials. Strabo has further been quoted as
-mentioning that cotton grew in Susiana and was there manufactured into
-cloths, but although I have searched his chapters many times I can find
-no such statement. It is most probable, however, that before his time
-cotton did grow and was manufactured in Susiana, and that it was first
-introduced by the Macedonians. They certainly brought into culture there
-before the time of Strabo another valuable plant: for we have the
-distinct statement of the latter that "the vine did not grow in Susiana
-before the Macedonians planted it both there and at Babylon."
-
-Amidst the hurry of war and the rage for conquest Alexander always kept
-in view the future pacification of an invaded country; its products,
-therefore, were habitually ascertained and carefully noted, with a view
-to the increase of revenue and the development of commerce. But, beyond
-this, the great Macedonian conqueror, wherever he went, employed a
-numerous corps of scouts, and searchers, and men of science, to collect
-specimens of the curious animals, plants, and minerals to be found on
-the march. These he sent home from time to time to his great preceptor
-Aristotle, who was thus assisted to produce a work on Natural History
-which, for general accuracy of description and extent of knowledge, is
-a wonderful monument of scientific observation.
-
-When by the refusal of his soldiers to proceed further than the banks of
-the Hyphasis (the modern Beyah), Alexander found himself obliged to
-yield to their wish to be led back to Persia, he determined to sail down
-the Indus to the ocean, and from its mouth to proceed by the Erythrean
-Sea to the Persian Gulf, that a communication by sea might be opened
-with India. His intention was that the valuable commodities of that
-country should thus be conveyed through the Persian Gulf to the interior
-parts of his Asiatic dominions, and that by the Arabian Gulf they should
-be carried to Alexandria (the site of which he had most judiciously
-selected), and thence distributed to the rest of the world.
-
-With this object in view, he ordered a numerous fleet of boats and
-river-craft to be built and collected on the banks of the Hydaspes, at
-Bucephalia (either the modern Jhelum, or Jubalpore, some eighteen miles
-lower down the stream), and, when nearly two thousand vessels of various
-shape and size had been got together, he commenced his voyage down the
-Hydaspes to the Indus. The conduct of the flotilla was committed to
-Nearchus, an officer worthy of that important trust, though Alexander
-himself accompanied him in his navigation down the river. The army
-numbered a hundred and twenty thousand men and two hundred elephants.
-One third of the troops were embarked on the boats, whilst the
-remainder, marching in two columns, one on the right, and the other on
-the left side of the river, accompanied them in their progress. Retarded
-by various military operations on land, as well as by the slow advance
-of such a fleet as he conducted, Alexander did not reach the sea until
-more than nine months after the commencement of his journey. Having
-safely accomplished this arduous undertaking, he led the main body of
-his army back to Persia by land. The command of the fleet, with a
-considerable body of troops on board of it, remained with Nearchus, who,
-after a coasting voyage of seven months, brought it safely up the
-Persian Gulf into the Euphrates.
-
-Alexander's expedition into India was no less an intelligent exploration
-than a successful invasion, and the western world is more indebted than
-is generally understood to the original genius, conspicuous foresight,
-political wisdom, and indefatigable exertions of that remarkable man. It
-was from the memoirs of his officers that Europe derived its first
-authentic information concerning the climate, soil, inhabitants and
-productions of India, and amongst the last not the least beneficial to
-man was cotton.
-
-Although Scylax of Caryandra, an emissary of Darius Hydaspes, had
-descended the Indus to the sea about a hundred and eighty years
-previously (B.C. 509), other nations had derived no benefit from his
-investigations. But his report of the fertility, high cultivation, and
-opulence of the country he had passed through inflamed his master's
-greed, and made Darius impatient to become possessor of a territory so
-valuable. This he soon accomplished, and though his conquests seem not
-to have extended beyond the districts watered by the Indus, he levied a
-tribute from it which equalled in amount one-third of the whole revenue
-of the Persian Monarchy.
-
-Until Alexander became master of Persia no commercial intercourse seems
-to have been carried on by sea between that country and India. The
-ancient rulers of Persia, induced by a peculiar precept of their
-religion which enjoined them to guard with the utmost care against the
-defilement of any of the "elements," and also by a fear of foreign
-invasion, obstructed by artificial works near their mouths the
-navigation of the great rivers which gave access to the interior of the
-country. As their subjects, however, were no less desirous than the
-people around them of possessing the valuable productions and elegant
-manufactures of India, these latter were conveyed to all parts of their
-dominions by land carriage. The goods destined for the northern
-provinces were borne on camels from the banks of the Indus to those of
-the Oxus, down the stream of which they were carried to the Caspian Sea,
-and distributed, partly by land and partly by navigable rivers, through
-the different countries bounded on the one hand by the Caspian, and on
-the other by the Euxine, or Black Sea; whilst those of India intended
-for the southern and interior districts were transported by land from
-the Caspian Gates to some of the great rivers, by which they were
-dispersed through every part of the country. This was the ancient mode
-of intercourse with India, whilst the Persian Empire was governed by its
-native princes; and, as Robertson says, "it has been observed in every
-age that when any branch of commerce has got into a certain channel,
-although it may not be the best or most convenient one, it requires long
-time and persistent efforts to give it a different direction."[38]
-
-  [38] Robertson's 'Historical Disquisition Concerning India.'
-
-Alexander of Macedon was not a man likely to permit the existence of
-impediments in the way of that which he knew to be highly conducive to
-national progress and prosperity--namely, the expansion of commerce and
-facility of communication. On his return, therefore, from India to Susa,
-he, in person, surveyed the course of the Euphrates and Tigris, and
-gave directions for the removal of the cataracts and dams, which had so
-long rendered the upper waters of these rivers inaccessible from the
-sea. His wise plans and splendid schemes were cut short by his early
-death, B.C. 324; but his surviving generals, though they quarrelled with
-each other, did their best to carry out his policy and the measures
-which he had concerted with so much sagacity.
-
-His successor, Seleucus, entertained so high an opinion of the
-advantages to be derived from commercial intercourse with India that he
-organized another expedition, which must have been very successful,
-though no particulars of it have come down to us. He also sent to
-Sandracottus, King of the Prasii, an ambassador, Megasthenes, who
-penetrated to Palebothra (the modern Allahabad), at the confluence of
-the Jumna and the Ganges.
-
-Meanwhile Ptolemy Soter, another of Alexander's generals, who had
-enjoyed his confidence and entered into his plans more thoroughly than
-any of his other officers, took possession of Egypt, and strove to
-secure for Alexandria the advantage of the trade with India. Some say
-that it was he who erected the lighthouse at the mouth of the harbour of
-Alexandria which was regarded as one of the seven wonders of the world,
-who built there the magnificent temple of Serapis, and who founded the
-celebrated library and museum for the benefit of learning and the
-cultivation of science.[39]
-
-  [39] See Appendix H.
-
-His son, Ptolemy Philadelphus, completed those works, and, further to
-attract the Indian trade to Alexandria, commenced to form a canal, one
-hundred and seventy-five feet wide, and forty-five feet deep, between
-Arsinoe (Suez) and the eastern branch of the Nile, by means of which the
-productions of India might be conveyed to Alexandria entirely by water.
-But this work was never finished, and as the navigation of the northern
-extremity of the Arabian Gulf (the Red Sea) was so difficult and
-dangerous as to be greatly dreaded, Ptolemy built a city, which he
-called Berenice, further down the west coast of that sea, about lat.
-24°. This new city soon became the chief port of communication between
-Egypt and India. Goods landed there were carried by camels across the
-desert of Thebais to Coptos, a distance of about 320 English miles, and
-from there down the Nile to Alexandria, whence they were transhipped to
-the various countries on the Mediterranean.
-
-Thus by the exploits and far-sighted policy of Alexander the Great were
-the then civilized nations of Europe made practically acquainted with
-calicoes, muslins, and other piece-goods--clothing materials which they
-had never previously seen, although probably for more than two thousand
-years these had been woven in the simple looms of India from the soft,
-white, "vegetable-lamb's wool that grew on trees"; and had during that
-long period supplied the principal raiment of a population of many
-millions.
-
-As the Persians had an unconquerable dislike of the sea, the seat of
-intercourse with India was the more easily established in Egypt, and it
-is remarkable how soon and how regularly the commerce with the East came
-to be carried on by the channel in which the sagacity of Alexander had
-destined it to flow.
-
-The Egyptian merchants took on board their cargoes of Indian produce at
-Patala (now Tatta) on the lower Delta of the Indus, at Barygaza (now
-Baroche, on the Nerbuddah) and in the Gulf of Cambay, and probably also
-at Kurrachee and Surat. As their vessels were of small burden, and as
-they, themselves, though sufficiently acquainted with astronomy to make
-some use of the stars, had no knowledge of the mariner's compass, the
-prudent merchantmen crept timidly along within sight of land, following
-the outline of every bay, and skirting the shores of Persia and Arabia
-and the western coast of Lower Egypt to Berenice. Though the course was
-tedious and the voyage prolonged, the traffic prospered, and was thus
-carried on for more than three centuries. When Egypt was conquered by
-Julius Cæsar, B.C. 30, and, after the battle of Actium, became a Roman
-province under Augustus, it continued undisturbed. The taste for luxury
-at Rome gave a new impetus to commerce with India, and at this time four
-hundred sailing craft were engaged in the trade.
-
-About A.D. 50, an important discovery was made which greatly facilitated
-intercourse between Egypt and the East, and diminished the time occupied
-by the voyage. Hippalus, the commander of a vessel trading with India,
-noticed the periodical winds called the "monsoons," or "trade-winds,"
-and how steadily they blew during one part of the year from the east,
-and during the other from the west. Having observed this to occur
-regularly every year, he ventured to relinquish the slow and circuitous
-coasting route, and stretched boldly from the mouth of the Arabian Gulf
-across the ocean, and was carried by the western monsoon to Musiris, on
-the Malabar coast. This was one of the greatest achievements in
-navigation in ancient history, and opened the best communication between
-East and West that was known for fourteen hundred years afterwards.
-
-Arrian (who wrote A.D. 131) says that at that date Indian cottons of
-large width, fine cottons, muslins, plain and figured, and cotton for
-stuffing couches and beds, were landed at Aduli (the present Massowah),
-and that Barygaza was the port from which they were chiefly shipped.
-
-The Romans also established an intercourse by land, by way of Palmyra
-("Tadmor in the Wilderness"), which by means of this trade rose to great
-opulence; but even after the removal of the seat of government from Rome
-to Constantinople, in the year 329, the Roman Empire was still supplied
-with the productions of India by way of Egypt. The trade that might have
-been carried on between India and Constantinople by land was prevented
-by the Persians.
-
-The Indo-Egyptian maritime traffic established by Alexander, and
-encouraged by Ptolemy Lagus and his son, prospered for nearly a thousand
-years. It survived the downfall of the Roman Empire, A.D. 476, and
-lasted until the conquest of Egypt by the Mahometans under Amru Benalas,
-the general of Caliph Omar, A.D. 634.
-
-As no communication was carried on between Mahometans and Christians,
-the capture of Alexandria by the Saracens prevented the nations of
-Europe obtaining the products of India through Egypt, and this valuable
-route of international communication was abruptly stopped.
-
-I have devoted some space to a description of the first maritime trade
-with India, established by the wisdom of Alexander, and suddenly
-arrested by Mahometan bigotry, because the history of that commerce is,
-more or less, the history of the cotton trade, and explains how the use
-of cotton and its progress westward were gradually developed and
-subsequently checked.
-
-It will be convenient to make this date--the commencement of "the dark
-ages"--a halting-place from which to mark how far cotton and the fabrics
-made from it were appreciated by the nations who were chiefly benefited
-by the sea-carriage of Indian products in general.
-
-The very ancient Egyptians were apparently unacquainted with cotton. At
-one time there was considerable discussion concerning the substance from
-which the swathing bandages of the mummies were woven, and some
-_savants_ claimed to have discovered cotton amongst them. But the
-microscope quickly decided that question, for the character and
-appearance of the fibres of cotton and flax are so markedly different
-that any young microscopist may distinguish one from the other with
-ease. It was found that in every case these bandages were made of linen.
-Negative evidence to the same effect is furnished by the fact that no
-pictures or other similitude of the cotton plant has been found in
-Egyptian tombs, whereas accurate representations of flax occur, in its
-different stages of growth, harvest, and manufacture.[40]
-
-  [40] In the Grotto of El Kab are paintings representing, amongst other
-  scenes, a field of corn and a crop of flax. Four persons are employed
-  in pulling up the flax by the roots; another binds it into sheaves; a
-  sixth carries it to a distance; and a seventh separates the linseed
-  from the stem by means of a four-toothed "ripple," which he uses just
-  in the same way as it is now used in Europe. See Hamilton's
-  '_Ægyptiaca_,' Plate xxiii., and Yates's '_Textrinum Antiquorum_,' p.
-  255.
-
-The circumstance mentioned by Herodotus, that King Amasis of Egypt, in
-sending as a gift to Sparta a corselet padded with cotton and ornamented
-with gold thread, thought it a fit present from a King, and in
-dedicating a similar one to Minerva in her temple at Lindus considered
-it an offering worthy of the goddess, shows that it was at that period a
-novelty and a rarity. The first knowledge of cotton in Egypt may, I
-think, be correctly assigned to that date--about B.C. 550. Linen was the
-principal clothing material of the Egyptians, and the manufacture of it
-from flax by them is probably of as great antiquity as the growth and
-wearing of cotton in India. The embalmed bodies of their dead were
-wrapped in it during successive ages through a period of more than two
-thousand years, and their priests wore it during the same period, its
-clean white texture being accepted as a semblance of purity, whereas
-wool, taken from a sheep, was deemed a profane attire.
-
-Flax and linen are frequently referred to in the Bible. The earliest
-mention of the former is in Exodus ix. 31, in the account of the plague
-of hail that devastated Lower Egypt B.C. 1491, and destroyed, when they
-were nearly ripe for harvest, the two most important crops of the
-Egyptians--that of the barley on which they relied for food for
-themselves and for export to other nations, and the flax on which they
-depended for their clothing and manufacturing employment. For flax was
-not only used for wearing apparel, but the coarser kinds were employed
-for making sail-cloths, ropes, nets, and for other purposes for which
-hemp is generally used.
-
-It is surprising that notwithstanding the comparative proximity of Egypt
-to India, cotton, which had been for ages so extensively manufactured in
-the latter country, should have remained so long unknown or
-unappreciated by a people to whom it would have furnished a cheaper and
-more comfortable article of dress than the flax-plant. But it is certain
-that linen was held in favour and the use of it prevailed in Egypt till
-the Christian era, although the cotton fabrics imported into Berenice
-were gradually coming into more general wear. Pacatus mentions that Mark
-Antony's soldiers wore cotton in Egypt, and says that they felt so much
-discomfort from the heat that they could hardly tolerate light cotton
-clothing, even in the shade.
-
-From a passage in Pliny's Natural History (lib. xix. cap. 1) it would
-appear that the cotton plant was cultivated in Upper Egypt in his day
-(A.D. 77), and this has been accepted as genuine and quoted by Dr.
-Ure[41] and others. But Mr. Yates, in his '_Textrinum Antiquorum_' (p.
-459), shows good reason for believing that the paragraph was
-interpolated in the text of one of the MSS. of Pliny's work, after
-having been originally an annotation in the margin of an earlier copy.
-This explanation clears up an otherwise involved and disconnected
-passage, and there are other reasons besides those given by Mr. Yates
-for believing that his surmise is correct.
-
-  [41] 'The Cotton Manufacture of Great Britain.'
-
-Abdollatiph, an Arabian physician who visited Egypt at the end of the
-twelfth century, does not mention cotton in the account which he wrote
-(A.D. 1203), of the plants of that country; and Prospero Alpini, the
-Paduan physician and botanist, who some four centuries later directed
-his attention to the natural history of Egypt, says[42] that the
-Egyptians then imported cotton for their use, that the herbaceous kind
-(_Gossypium herbaceum_), from which cotton was obtained in Syria and
-Cyprus, did not grow in Egypt, but that the tree kind (_G. arboreum_)
-was cultivated as an ornamental plant in private gardens, and in very
-small quantities, its down not being used for spinning.
-
-  [42] '_De Plantis Ægypti_,' cap. 18.
-
-Belon, who was in Egypt about thirty years before Alpini, makes no
-mention of cotton growing there; but says that he found it in Arabia, at
-the north of the Arabian Gulf, near Mount Sinai.
-
-It would appear, therefore, that up to the beginning of the seventeenth
-century the Egyptians were importers, not cultivators, of cotton.
-
-From a passage in the comedy 'Pausimachus' of Cecilius Statius (who died
-B.C. 169), quoted by Mr. Yates in the work already referred to, the
-Greeks seem to have been acquainted with muslins and calicoes brought
-from India 200 years before Christ; and about a century later the Romans
-adopted the Oriental custom of using cotton-cloth as a protection from
-the sun's rays. Ornamental coverings for tents were made from it, and
-awnings of striped and coloured calico were spread over the theatres,
-and gave welcome shade to the spectators. It was also used for
-sail-cloth. Cotton fabrics are frequently mentioned by the poets of the
-Augustan age, and by writers of a later date; but the finer qualities
-are almost always referred to in a manner which indicates that by the
-Greeks and Romans they were regarded rather as an expensive and curious
-production than as an article of common use. Their dress was almost
-entirely woollen, which, as they frequently used the bath, was always
-comfortable; and, for cooler wear, as Mr. Yates truly observes, "there
-appears no reason why cotton fabrics should have been used in preference
-to linen. The latter is more cleanly, more durable, and much less liable
-to take fire; and amongst the ancients it must have been much the
-cheaper of the two." In Rome and Athens the finest woven goods were
-extravagantly dear, for the body of the people were practically excluded
-from manufacturing work. This was principally carried on by slaves for
-the benefit of their masters, for all the great men had large
-establishments of slaves who understood the art of manufacturing most of
-the articles necessary for ordinary use. The importation of cotton and
-piece-goods into ancient Greece and Rome was therefore comparatively
-inconsiderable.
-
-With the fall of the Roman Empire, into which Greece had previously been
-absorbed, art and science in Europe sank into a death-like trance which
-lasted for many centuries. We will therefore trace the progress of the
-Indian cotton trade in other directions during the long period that
-elapsed before science and art revived.
-
-As India carried on a very important manufacture of cotton for home
-consumption, as well as for her large exports, it might be supposed that
-China would have been led to participate in the advantages offered by
-it. But, as in Egypt flax had been for many ages the raw material
-principally used for the clothing of the population, so in China fabrics
-woven from the web of the silkworm were, from the earliest times, used
-for the dress of all classes of the people. By authorities of high
-repute in China we are informed that Si-Hing, wife of the Emperor
-Hoang-Ti, began to breed silkworms about 2,600 years before Christ, and
-that the mulberry tree was cultivated to supply them with food four
-hundred years afterwards.
-
-India was the country of cotton; Egypt, of flax; China, of silk; and in
-the two latter countries (especially in the case of the exclusive
-Chinese) vested interests for a long time barred the way against the
-adoption of the new foreign material. Cotton vestments and robes of
-honour were occasionally presented to the Chinese emperors by foreign
-ambassadors, and were highly appreciated and admired. The Emperor Ou-Ti,
-whose reign commenced B.C. 502, had one of these robes; but it was not
-till fifteen hundred years later that cotton began to be cultivated in
-China for manufacturing purposes. Towards the end of the seventh century
-the herbaceous species was grown in the gardens of Pekin, but only for
-the sake of its flowers. When the country was conquered by the Mongolian
-Tartars, A.D. 1280, the emperors of that dynasty took all possible pains
-to extend the culture of cotton, and imposed an annual tribute of it on
-several provinces. The cultivators, merchants, weavers, and wearers of
-silk (which included the whole nation) regarded this as a dangerous
-innovation seriously affecting their rights and habits, and zealously
-tried to maintain the established usages of the people. Eventually,
-however, their prejudices were overcome, and at present nine persons out
-of ten in China are clad in cotton raiment.
-
-Returning to the dark ages of Europe, and the rise of the Mahometan
-power there, we find that by the end of the seventh century the
-cultivation and manufacture of cotton in Arabia and Syria had become an
-important industry, and had also crept along the northern coast of
-Africa. When, therefore, the Saracens and Moors invaded Spain and
-wrested it from the Goths (A.D. 712) they brought with them a knowledge
-of the plant and its uses. Being well skilled in agriculture, they
-immediately introduced in the conquered territory the cultivation of
-cotton, sugar, rice, and the mulberry--the latter being in favour for
-the use of its leaves as food for the silkworm. Looms were put to work
-in almost every town, and the growth and weaving of cotton were carried
-on with great and increasing success until the fifteenth century.
-Barcelona was celebrated for its cotton sail-cloth, of which it supplied
-a great quantity to ship-owners, and stout cotton stuffs like fustian
-were also qualities for which the Spanish looms were famous. Cotton
-paper, too, seems to have been first made by the Spanish Arabs, although
-about the same time it was substituted for papyrus in Egypt. A paper was
-likewise manufactured in Spain from linen rags which was much admired by
-the literary men of the time. But the religious antipathy which existed
-between the Moors and Christians prevented the spread of these and other
-Oriental arts; so that when the Moorish domination in Spain was crushed
-by the conquest of Grenada, in 1492, the manufactures which the Moors
-had introduced and fostered relapsed into barbarous neglect. The cotton
-plant is still found growing wild in some parts of the Peninsula. Under
-the influence of the Moors cotton was cultivated in Greece, Italy,
-Sicily and Malta, but upon their expulsion from Europe its growth was
-transferred to the African shores of the Mediterranean.
-
-During the sway of the Mahometans the passage of Indian commodities to
-North-Western and Central Europe was so effectually barred by them that
-the trade dwindled, and the demand for the products of the East almost
-ceased. When the route through Egypt was closed, the Persians, who by
-that time had learned the advantages of commercial intercourse with
-other nations, seized the opportunity of diverting the traffic of the
-Persian Gulf by the Euphrates and Tigris to Bagdad, and thence across
-the Desert of Palmyra to the Mediterranean ports. But as Constantinople
-was also in the hands of the Caliphs, the roads to Europe were long and
-difficult. The greater part of the goods from India had, as I have
-mentioned (p. 58), to be carried by land on the backs of camels with the
-great caravans which, from time immemorial, have been the chief means of
-commercial intercourse between the nations of Eastern, Central, and
-Northern Asia, and the countries to the south and west of them.
-
-Besides the two great caravans of pilgrims and merchants which, annually
-starting from Cairo and Damascus, met at Mecca, exchanged their
-merchandize there, and disseminated it on their return in every country
-they passed through, there were others consisting entirely of merchants
-whose sole object was commerce. These at stated seasons set out from
-different parts of Persia by ancient routes, on journeys of enormous
-length--those for the East visited India, and even the furthest
-extremities of China. Their average rate of travel was eighteen miles
-per day; and as the time of their departure and their route were both
-known, they were met by the people of all the countries through which
-they passed, for the purpose of sale, purchase, or barter. Hence the
-establishment, as commercial gathering-places, of the great fairs, of
-which that still held annually at Nijni Novgorod is a well-known
-example. The value of the trade thus carried on was far beyond the
-conception of any one who has not given especial attention to the
-subject. That between Russia and China, which has only been discontinued
-within the last few years, has been very important. In the time of Peter
-the Great, though the capitals of the two empires were six thousand
-three hundred and seventy-eight miles apart, and the route lay for more
-than four hundred miles through an uninhabited desert, caravans
-travelled regularly from one to the other. Tedious as this mode of
-conveyance appears, it sufficed for the traffic in Eastern produce at a
-period when the whole of Europe had but little time or taste for the
-refinements of life, and but little means of purchasing them. Nations
-were at that time frequently at war, the feudal barons kept their
-vassals under arms, a soldier's career was the only means of acquiring
-distinction, and luxuries obtained by commerce were looked upon as
-effeminate and degrading.
-
-The arts and sciences first revived in Italy. The republics of Venice
-and Genoa turned their attention to commerce, and, in the year 1204, the
-Venetians, under Dandolo, and assisted by the soldiers of the fourth
-crusade, took the city of Constantinople from the Greeks, and, for a
-time, had the advantage of carrying on the Indian trade. They only held
-it, however, for fifty-seven years; for, in 1261, the Greeks, under
-Michael Palæologus, and aided by the Genoese, recovered possession of
-the city, and Genoa acquired the privileges which Venice, for a short
-time, had enjoyed. The Venetians then, setting aside their religious
-scruples, made a treaty with the Mahometans, and obtained the produce of
-India through Egypt.
-
-The progress of the cotton trade, which had for so long been restricted,
-now became more rapid. In the fourteenth century the fustians and
-dimities of Venice and Milan were much esteemed, especially in Northern
-Europe. Half a century later the manufacture was established in Saxony
-and Suabia, whence it made its way into the Netherlands. At Bruges and
-Ghent a large trade arose, especially in the fustians which were
-manufactured in Prussia and Germany, and were exported thence to
-Flanders and Spain.
-
-At the end of the fifteenth century two events took place within a few
-years of each other which formed an important epoch, not only in the
-history of the cotton trade, but in the history of the world--namely,
-the discovery of America by Columbus, and that of the passage to India
-round the Cape of Good Hope by Vasco da Gama. The commerce of Genoa
-having been supplanted by the Venetians, Christopher Columbus, a
-Genoese, conceived the plan of sailing to India by a new course. It
-having been admitted by philosophers that the world was globular, he
-rightly argued that any point on it might be reached by sailing
-westward, as well as by travelling eastward. He therefore laid his
-scheme, first, before the Council of the Republic of Genoa, and
-afterwards before the King of Portugal; but, as it was unfavourably
-received by both, he persuaded Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to grant
-him two ships, and with these he sailed westward in search of India, on
-the 3rd of August, 1492. On his arrival, thirty days afterwards, at one
-of the Bahamas, the first land he saw after crossing the Atlantic, his
-vessels were surrounded by canoes filled with natives bringing cotton
-yarn and thread in skeins for exchange. And when he landed in Cuba,
-which he at first supposed to be the mainland of India, he saw the women
-there wearing dresses made of cotton cloth, and also found in use strong
-nets made of cotton cords, which the inhabitants stretched between poles
-and in which they slept at night. These were called "hamacas," whence
-comes our word "hammock." The people there had also so great a quantity
-of spun cotton on spindles that it was estimated there was 12,000 lbs.
-weight of it in a single house. Oviedo says the same of Hayti, and, at
-the discovery of Guadaloupe, the same year, cotton thread in skeins was
-found everywhere, and looms wherewith to weave it. There, as well as at
-Hayti and Cuba, the idols were made of cotton, and, in 1520, Fernando
-Magalhaens found the natives of Brazil using cotton for stuffing beds.
-The growth and manufacture of cotton, which were the first things
-brought to the notice of Columbus in the "West Indies," and which were
-soon afterwards found existing in various parts of South America, had
-apparently been handed down to those who practised them from a time far
-away in the past.
-
-The Eastern Hemisphere is popularly regarded, even at the present day,
-as possessing a monopoly of antiquity, or, at any rate, of ancient
-civilization. It is not difficult to understand the mental process by
-which this notion is produced. In the first place the mind is hardly
-prepared to receive the idea that the inhabitants of countries of the
-existence of which we have, comparatively, so recently become aware as
-the continent of America should have attained to a high degree of
-civilization long before the natives of Britain emerged from savage
-barbarism. This feeling found expression in the distinctive
-appellations given respectively to the two hemispheres, the "Old World"
-and the "New World." Secondly, the only written historical records that
-have come down to us from the remote past relate to Europe, Asia, and
-Africa. But the oldest authentic history is only yesterday's news in
-comparison with the age of the world, and that which was called "the New
-World" is as old as the rest of the globe, and, apparently, was
-populated at quite as early a period. For in Mexico and Central America
-are found unmistakable proofs of the greatness and culture of former
-dwellers in the land. Immense piles of cyclopean masonry, of
-inconceivable grandeur, and incalculable antiquity; mounds and pyramids
-as massive as those of Egypt, huge reservoirs for water, aqueducts,
-ruins of public buildings, temples and palaces, tell of a powerful and
-wealthy nation, skilled in engineering and other sciences, and in all
-the important arts of civilized life. These were followed by successive
-races, differing from each other in habits, laws, arts, manufactures and
-religious worship. But all have passed away and out of memory as
-completely as if they had never been. We know nothing of their wars or
-dynasties, their prosperity or decay. Their works are their sole
-history. Only their ruined monuments remain to show that they once
-existed; and these are sometimes found in forest solitudes so far from
-the habitations of those who now occupy their territories, that the
-traveller who unexpectedly comes upon them is startled, like Crusoe by
-the foot-print, to find that man has been there.
-
-In Peru, too, the companions of Pizarro found everywhere evidence of a
-vast antiquity, and of the former existence of a people fully equal to
-the Romans in grandeur of conception and skill in construction of their
-marvellous public works. The remains of the capital city of the Chinus
-of Northern Peru cover not less than a hundred and twenty square miles.
-Tombs, temples and palaces arise on every hand, ruined for centuries,
-but still traceable; immense pyramidal structures, some of them half a
-mile in circuit; prisons, furnaces for smelting metals, and all the
-structures of a busy city may still be found there. Cieça de Leon
-mentions having seen at Teahuanaca great buildings, and stones so large
-and so overgrown that it was incomprehensible how the power of man could
-have placed them where they were. In another place he saw enormous
-gateways made of masses of stone, some of which were thirty feet long,
-fifteen feet high, and six feet thick. The ancient Peruvians made
-considerable use of aqueducts, which they built with great skill of hewn
-stones and cement. One of these aqueducts extended four hundred and
-fifty miles across sierras and rivers. Their roads, macadamized with
-broken stone mixed with lime and asphalte, were described by Humboldt as
-"marvellous," and he said that none of the Roman roads he had seen in
-Italy, in the south of France, or in Spain, had appeared to him more
-imposing than the great road of the ancient Peruvians from Quito to
-Cuzco, and through the whole length of the empire to Chili.
-
-These were the works of men who lived thousands of years before the
-times of the Incas, and amongst their manufactures was that of cotton.
-
-In 1831, Lord Colchester brought from ancient tombs at Arica, in Peru,
-and placed in the British Museum, some mummy-cloths woven of cotton, the
-fibres of which seen under the microscope are very tortuous, and
-resemble those of _Gossypium hirsutum_, which is probably the primitive
-cotton plant of South America. The cultivation and manufacture of
-cotton, therefore, in the "New World" seems to have been at least
-coeval with the similar use of it in India.
-
-When Pizarro conquered Peru, in 1532, he found the cotton manufacture
-still existent and flourishing there, for the works of the Peruvians in
-cotton and wool (the latter chiefly that of the vicuna) exceeded in
-fineness anything known in Europe at that time. He also learned that,
-from the foundation of the empire, at an unknown date, the dress of the
-Inca, or Sovereign, had always been made of cotton, and of many colours,
-by the "Virgins of the Sun."
-
-When Cortez and his comrades conquered Mexico in 1519, the people had
-neither flax, nor silk, nor wool of sheep. They supplied the want of
-these with cotton, fine feathers, and the fur of hares and rabbits. The
-use of cotton, which had long previously existed, as is known from Aztec
-hieroglyphics, was as common and almost as diversified amongst the
-Mexicans as it is now amongst the nations of Europe. They made of it
-clothing of every kind, hangings, defensive armour, and other things
-innumerable. Cortez was so struck by the beautiful texture of some
-articles that were presented to him by the natives of Yucatan, that a
-few days after his arrival in Mexico he sent home to the Emperor Charles
-V., amongst other rich presents, a variety of cotton mantles, some all
-white, and others chequered and figured in divers colours. On the
-outside they had a long nap, like a shaggy cloth, but on the inside they
-were without any colour or nap. A number of "under-waistcoats,"
-"handkerchiefs," "counterpanes," and "carpets" of cotton were also sent
-to Europe by Cortez.
-
-Columbus's great discovery was not immediately turned to account, so far
-as the cotton trade was concerned, although it was destined to be most
-valuable to that industry at a later period. Astonishing as was his
-success, and great and extensive as were its results in finding a "New
-World" hardly inferior in magnitude to one-third of the habitable
-surface of the globe, he had not achieved exactly that which was the
-original object of his voyage--the discovery of a westerly course to
-India. When, therefore, only six years afterwards, a direct sea route to
-the East, by sailing round the Cape of Good Hope, was found, the exploit
-was for some time regarded as the more important of the two, because its
-probable effects were more easily perceptible.
-
-The Portuguese, who had explored the west coasts of Africa which lay
-nearest to their own country, and had made several unsuccessful attempts
-to find a passage eastward, determined to make another vigorous effort
-to surmount the difficulty. Accordingly, on the 8th of July, 1497, a
-small squadron sailed from the Tagus, under the command of Vasco da
-Gama. After a long and dangerous voyage this navigator rounded the
-promontory which had for several years been the object of the hopes and
-dread of his countrymen, and skirting the south-east coast, arrived at
-Melinda, about two degrees north of Zanzibar. There he found a people so
-far civilized that they carried on an active commerce, not only with the
-nations on their own coast, but with the remote countries of Asia.
-Taking some of these natives on board his ships as pilots, he sailed
-across the Indian Ocean, and on the 22nd of May, 1498, landed at
-Calicut, on the Malabar coast, ten months and two days after his
-departure from Lisbon.
-
-Vasco da Gama during his short stay at Melinda had little time for
-inquiring into the condition of the cotton trade of the country on whose
-shores he had landed, and it does not seem to have been forced upon his
-attention as it was on that of Columbus. But when Odoardo Barbosa, of
-Lisbon, visited South Africa eighteen years afterwards (in 1516), he
-found the natives wearing clothes of cotton. In 1590, cotton cloth woven
-on the coast of Guinea was imported into London from the Bight of Benin,
-and modern travellers in the interior of Africa concur in the opinion
-that cotton is indigenous there, and in stating that it is spun and
-woven into cloth in every region of that continent. From the beauty of
-the dye and the designs in some of the cotton dresses, it is justly
-inferred to be a manufacture of very ancient standing. We have evidence,
-therefore, that in Africa, as well as in Asia and America, the cotton
-plant had a separate centre of indigenous growth, and that from a very
-remote period its vegetable wool was manufactured into useful and
-ornamental articles of clothing.[43]
-
-  [43] The cotton plant was also found indigenous in the Sandwich
-  Islands, the Galapagos, etc. It is doubtful whether the cotton found
-  in the Bornean Archipelago had not been carried eastward from India.
-
-The Portuguese took every possible precaution to secure the prize which
-by the courage and perseverance of their admiral they had been enabled
-to grasp, and to maintain the rights which priority of discovery was, in
-those days, supposed to confer. A chain of forts or factories was
-established for the protection of their trade; whilst for the extension
-of it they took possession of Malacca, and their ships visited every
-port from the Cape to Canton.
-
-The Venetians saw with alarm the ruin that impended over them through
-the successful rivalry in trade of the Portuguese, but were powerless to
-prevent a competition against which their merchants were unable to
-contend. They therefore formed an alliance with the Turks under the
-Sultans Selim and his successor, Solyman the Magnificent, and incited
-them to send a fleet against the prosperous Portuguese. They even
-allowed the Turks to cut timber in the forests of Dalmatia with which to
-build their ships; and when twelve of these were finished, Solyman
-manned them with his Janissaries, and sent them to harass the Indian
-trade. The Portuguese met them with undaunted bravery, and, after
-several conflicts, vanquished the Ottoman squadron, and remained masters
-of the Indian Ocean.
-
-The immediate effect of direct communication with the East by sea was
-the lowering of the prices of Indian produce. Commerce naturally sought
-the cheapest market. The trade of Venice was annihilated, and the stream
-of wealth that had flowed to her treasury was dried at its source. The
-merchandize of India was shipped from the most convenient ports, and
-conveyed cheaply, safely, and directly to Lisbon, and thence was
-distributed through Europe. A plentiful supply of Indian goods at
-reasonable rates caused a rapid increase in the demand for them, and
-amongst the trades to which this gave an impetus was that in cotton.
-
-Up to this period no cotton was woven in England; the small quantity
-that was used for candle-wicks, &c., came either from Italy or the
-Levant. Linen was first woven in England in 1253, by Flemish hands; but
-for nearly a century afterwards almost all the cotton, woollen and linen
-fabrics consumed there were manufactured on the continent, and a great
-quantity of British wool was exported to Flanders and Holland. Edward
-III., however, gave encouragement to foreign skill, and in 1328 some
-Flemings settled in Manchester, and commenced the weaving of certain
-cloths, which, though composed of wool, were known as "Manchester
-cottons," and thus paved the way for the great cotton manufacture for
-which that part of Lancashire is now famous.
-
-In 1560, England imported, through Antwerp, cotton brought from Italy
-and the Levant, as well as that carried from India to Lisbon by the
-Portuguese, and showed some anxiety to compete in its manufacture with
-foreign countries. An impulse was given to this ambition in 1585 by a
-fresh influx of Flemish workpeople, who, driven from their own country
-to escape the cruelties of the Duke of Alba during the religious
-persecution of the Low Countries by the Spaniards, found an asylum in
-England, and brought with them the skill in workmanship which adjoining
-States had long envied.
-
-India, however, continued far in advance of every European country in
-the spinning and weaving of cotton to nearly the middle of the
-eighteenth century. The activity of the trade in her piece goods was
-looked upon as ruinous to the home manufacturer, though most profitable
-to the merchant, and we find Daniel Defoe, in 1708, thus lamenting, in
-his 'Weekly Review,' the preference for Indian chintz, calico, &c.
-
-"It crept," he says, "into our houses, our closets, our bedchambers;
-curtains, cushions, chairs, and, at last beds themselves were nothing
-but calicoes and Indian stuffs, and, in short, almost everything that
-used to be made of wool or silk, relating either to the dress of the
-women or the furniture of our houses, was supplied by the Indian
-trade.... The several goods brought from India are made five parts in
-six under our price, and, being imported and sold at an extravagant
-advantage, are yet capable of underselling the cheapest thing we can set
-about."
-
-The Portuguese remained in undisturbed possession of the lucrative trade
-with India till the end of the sixteenth century, when the United
-Provinces of the Low Countries challenged their pretensions to an
-exclusive right of commerce in the East; and in 1595, the Dutch East
-India Company was formed. The English soon followed, and five years
-later (in 1600) the British East India Company was incorporated by Royal
-Charter. It immediately obtained from the native princes permission to
-establish forts and factories, and in 1624 was invested with powers of
-government. The Portuguese monopoly and predominance in the East was
-overturned and crushed, and England and Holland attained supremacy in
-naval power and commercial wealth.
-
-The cotton trade did not so quickly benefit by this as might have been
-expected. It remained stationary for more than a century afterwards. But
-in 1738 commenced the history of those wonderful inventions which by
-giving the power of almost unlimited production to our people
-revolutionized the manufacturing world. England, which two centuries ago
-imported only £5000 worth of raw cotton, now pays more than £40,000,000
-(forty million pounds) sterling every year for her supply for twelve
-months;[44] and as this supply is drawn from every quarter of the globe,
-she can appreciate the effect upon her cotton trade of the various
-maritime discoveries mentioned in these pages. From the country
-discovered by Columbus, and populated chiefly by her own offspring,
-England receives by far the largest portion of her requirements. The
-route round Cape Horn, discovered by Fernando Magalhaens in 1520, has
-its advantages as another road to the colonies and Eastern possessions
-of Great Britain. The course round the Cape of Good Hope, by which Vasco
-da Gama navigated his ships to Calicut, was for three and a half
-centuries the main road between India and Western Europe for personal
-intercourse, as well as the conveyance of heavy goods, such as cotton;
-and, though long, it was direct, and comparatively cheap. But the
-superiority of the first sea-route originally established by the
-foresight and genius of the great Macedonian conqueror was demonstrated
-in 1845, when Lieutenant Waghorn, a young officer in the service of the
-East India Company, with invincible ardour, and determined perseverance
-against official obstruction and innumerable obstacles, once more made
-Egypt the causeway between Europe and India. Alexandria, built on a site
-admirably chosen by its founder as a centre of commercial traffic, and
-placed by the prudence of his engineers just sufficiently far from the
-outflow of the Nile to be free from the danger of its harbour being
-silted up by the sediment of that muddy river, again became the port of
-arrival and departure: but increased skill in seamanship and the command
-of steam power having diminished the risk and difficulty of navigating
-the upper part of the Red Sea, Suez, the ancient Arsinoe, was selected
-for the corresponding depôt, as offering a shorter passage by land from
-sea to sea than the old road by Berenice, Coptos, and the Nile. Waghorn
-bravely carried out his scheme in the face of the most vexatious
-opposition and discouragement. He built at his own expense eight
-halting-places in the desert between Cairo and Suez, provided carriages
-for passengers, and placed small steamers on the Nile and on the canal
-of Alexandria. At last the British and the Indian authorities, who had
-thrown every obstacle in his way, with an obstinate perversity which
-would be almost incredible if it were unique, graciously consented to
-countenance his plans, and to allow the mail bags to and from India to
-reach their destination six weeks earlier than by their former journey.
-Thus Thomas Waghorn brought England and her Eastern possessions by that
-much nearer to each other, and for this achievement deserves the
-gratitude of his countrymen and an honourable place in history.
-
-  [44] The importation of cotton into Liverpool and London in 1886 was
-  as follows:--
-
-                            lbs.
-    American           1,317,562,480
-    Brazilian             33,832,400
-    Egyptian             173,340,000
-    West India, etc.       9,529,910
-    Surat                148,306,700
-    Madras                26,729,200
-    Bengal and Rangoon    32,324,600
-                       -------------
-    Total              1,741,625,290
-
-  The prices of the different kinds of cotton vary according to their
-  respective qualities, and are also influenced by the fluctuations of
-  their market value. During 1886 the best Egyptian cotton was sometimes
-  sold as high as 7½_d._ per lb., and the inferior as low as 3¾_d._ per
-  lb.
-
-  The total value of the cotton imported during 1886 was, as I have
-  said, rather over £40,000,000 sterling.
-
-The new route was, however, unsuitable to the enormous traffic in
-merchandize to and from the East. The unloading of cargoes at Alexandria
-or Suez, their "portage" across the desert, and their re-shipment on
-other vessels at the further side of the Isthmus, was too tedious,
-laborious, and expensive to be practicable; therefore the "Overland
-Route" was chiefly used for the rapid conveyance of the European mails,
-passengers, and light goods, whilst the heavy merchandize, such as
-cotton bales, was conveyed round the Cape as before.
-
-In 1869, a feat of engineering was completed, the importance of which it
-is impossible to exaggerate. By the cutting of a deep and wide canal
-through the narrow strip of land which had previously barred the passage
-by sea round the north-eastern corner of Africa, a water-way was opened
-between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, by which large ships can pass
-from one sea to the other without unloading their cargoes. All honour to
-M. de Lesseps, who, in spite of difficulties apparently insurmountable,
-successfully accomplished this work! He had to contend against grave
-political considerations, national prejudices and jealousies, religious
-fanaticism, vested interests, and the faithless treachery and grasping
-avarice of local officials. It appears to me that amidst political
-complications, conflicting interests, the war of tariffs, and financial
-arrangements, the credit and appreciation most justly due to the author
-of the Suez Canal have been but grudgingly given. But his posthumous
-fame will be lasting, and his name will be renowned in the future
-amongst those of the great path-finders and road-makers of the world,
-whose discoveries and achievements have largely benefited mankind.
-
-The white fleeces of the wool that Alexander and his admiral saw growing
-on trees in India is again conveyed to Europe by the route planned for
-it by the great chieftain of Macedon. The water-way which he possibly
-suggested, and which the son of his general and confidant, Ptolemy,
-endeavoured, but failed, to cut, has been successfully laid open. And,
-although we now draw our chief supply of cotton from the western country
-discovered by Columbus, one result of increased facility of
-communication with the East, in conjunction with perfection of
-machinery, is that the vegetable wool coming therefrom, after giving
-employment to thousands of our people, and adding to our national
-prosperity, is returned by the same route, manufactured into various
-fabrics wherewith to clothe the people who cultivated it.
-
-The subject of this chapter being the cotton trade, I need offer no
-apology for regarding so many of the great events of history from the
-point of view of their influence, especially, upon cotton as an article
-of commerce. Although, however, cotton is but a small item amongst the
-products of India, the lesson which its history forces upon all
-Englishmen (without distinction of religious creed, social rank, or
-political party) concerning the country from which it was first received
-in Europe and Asia is, that the possession of India confers wealth and
-power on her European rulers, and that Egypt is the highway to it. The
-nation that holds India must grasp it firmly lest it be snatched from
-its keeping, must guard carefully and hold strongly the road to it, and
-must be prepared to fight for either or both, if necessary, against any
-combination of enemies. For now, as in times gone by, jealous eyes are
-fixed upon it, and their owners only await an opportunity to put in
-practice that which Wordsworth makes his Rob Roy call
-
-                      "the good old rule,
-                   ... the simple plan,
-    That he shall take who has the power,
-    And he shall keep who can!"
-
-
-
-
-APPENDIX.
-
-
-A (p. 2).
-
-SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE.
-
-Sir John Mandeville, or Maundeville, was of a family that came into
-England with the Conqueror. He is said to have been a man of learning
-and substance, and had studied physic and natural philosophy. He was
-also a good and conscientious man, and was, moreover, the greatest
-traveller of his time. John Bale, in his catalogue of British writers,
-says of him that "he was so well given to the study of learning from his
-childhood that he seemed to plant a good part of his felicitie in the
-same; for he supposed that the honour of his birth would nothing availe
-him except he could render the same more honourable by his knowledge in
-good letters. He therefore well grounded himself in religion by reading
-the Scriptures, and also applied his studies to the art of physicke, a
-profession worthy a noble wit; but amongst other things he was ravished
-with a mighty desire to see the greater parts of the world, as Asia and
-Africa. Having provided all things necessary for his journey, he
-departed from his country in the yeere of Christ 1322, and, as another
-Ulysses, returned home after the space of thirty-four years, and was
-then known to a very few. In the time of his travaile he was in Scythia,
-the greater and lesser Armenia, Egypt, both Libyas, Arabia, Syria,
-Media, Mesopotamia, Persia, Chaldea, Greece, Illyrium, Tartarie and
-divers other kingdoms of the World, and having gotten by this means the
-knowledge of the languages, lest so many and great varieties and things
-miraculous whereof himself had been an eie-witness should perish in
-oblivion, he committed his whole travell of thirty-four yeeres to
-writing in three divers tongues--English, French, and Latine. Being
-arrived again in England, having seen the wickedness of that age, he
-gave out this speech;--'In our time,' he said, 'it may be spoken more
-truly than of old that virtue is gone; the Church is under foot; the
-clergie is in erreur; the Devill raigneth, and Simone beareth the
-sway.'"
-
-A man who in the first part of the fourteenth century could conceive,
-and for thirty-four years persist in carrying out, the intention of
-travelling from one country to another over a great part of the
-habitable globe, must have possessed remarkable qualifications. Indeed,
-his achievements were so extraordinary, and his narrative agrees in so
-many particulars with that of the travels of Marco Polo, that it has
-been suggested that he may never have gone to the East at all, but
-compiled his book from the journals of his predecessor. But it seems to
-me impossible to doubt the correctness of Mr. Halliwell's opinion that
-this suggestion is wholly unjustifiable, and that, after perusal of the
-volume, the judgment of any impartial reader would repudiate such a
-supposition. Sir John Mandeville met with credit and respect in his own
-day, and the transcriber on vellum of a small folio MS. copy of his
-book, written in double columns certainly not more than twenty years
-after his death, prefaces it in a manner which shows that he entertained
-no doubt concerning it.
-
-There are several editions of Sir John Mandeville's account of his
-'Voiages.' The most useful to the general reader are, 1st, that printed
-in London, in 1725, from a manuscript in the Cottonian collection; 2nd,
-a reprint of the above, with a few notes by Mr. J. O. Halliwell, and
-various illustrations, which are _fac-simile_ copies by F. W. Fairholt,
-from the older editions and manuscripts in the Harleian collection,
-published by Lumley in 1837; and, 3rd, a reprint of this later edition,
-published by F. S. Ellis, in 1866.
-
-Sir John Mandeville died at Liege on the 17th of November, 1371. His
-fellow-townsmen of St. Albans appear to have believed that his body was
-brought home to the place of his birth, and buried in St. Albans Abbey,
-for the following doggrel verses were inscribed as his epitaph on one of
-the pillars there:--
-
-    "All ye that pass by, on this pillar cast eye,
-    This Epitaph read if you can;
-    'Twill tell you a Tombe once stood in this room
-    Of a brave, spirited man,
-    Sir John Mandevil by name, a knight of great fame,
-    Born in this honoured Towne;
-    Before him was none that ever was knowne
-    For travaile of so high renowne.
-    As the Knights in the Temple cross-legged in Marble,
-    In armour with sword and with shield,
-    So was this Knight grac'd which Time hath defac'd
-    That nothing but Ruines doth yield.
-    His travailes being done, he shines like the Sun
-    In heavenly Canaan.
-    To which blessed place the Lord, of His grace,
-    Bring us all, man after man."
-
-There is no doubt, however, that Sir John Mandeville was buried in the
-Abbey of the Gulielmites in the town of Liege, where he died; for
-Abrahamus Ortelius, in his 'Itinerarium Belgiæ' (p. 16), has printed the
-following epitaph there set over him:--
-
-"_Hic jacet vir nobilis Dominus Johannes de Mandeville, aliter dictus ad
-Barbam, Miles, Dominus de Campdi, natus de Angliâ, medicine professor,
-devotissimus orator, et bonorum largissimus pauperibus erogator; qui
-toto quasi orbe lustrato Leodii diem viti sui clausit extremum Anno
-Domini 1371, Mensis Novembris die 17._"
-
-Ortelius adds, that upon the same stone with the epitaph is engraven a
-man in armour with a forked beard, treading upon a lion, and at his head
-a hand of one blessing him, and these words in old French: "_Vos ki
-paseis sor mi, pour l'amour Deix proies por mi_"--that is, "Ye that pass
-over me, for the love of God pray for me." There is also a void place
-for an escutcheon, whereon, Ortelius was told, there was formerly a
-brass plate with the arms of the deceased knight engraven thereon--viz.,
-a Lion _argent_ with a Lunet _gules_, at his breast, in a Field _azure_,
-and a Border engraled _or_. The clergy of the Abbey also exhibited the
-knives, the horse-furniture, and the spurs used by Sir John Mandeville
-in his travels. John Weever, in his 'Ancient Funeral Monuments' (p.
-568), says that he saw the above epitaph at Liege, and also the
-following verses hanging near by on a tablet:--
-
-                       "_Aliud
-    Hoc jacet in tumulo cui totus patria vivo
-    Orbis erat: totium quem peragrasse ferunt
-    Anglus, Equesque fuit; num ille Britannus Ulysses
-    Dicatur, Graio clarus, Ulysse magis.
-    Moribus, ingenio, candore, et sanguine clarus,
-    Et vere cultor Religionis erat
-    Nomen si quæras est Mandevil, Indus, Arabsque,
-    Sat notum dicit finibus esse suis._"
-
-
-B (p. 8).
-
-ODORICUS OF FRIULI.
-
-Odoricus did not write his account of his travels with his own hand, but
-dictated it to his brother friar, William de Solanga, who wrote it as
-Odoricus related it. Having "testified and borne witness to the Rev.
-Father Guidolus, minister of the province of S. Anthony, in the
-Marquesate of Treviso (being by him required upon his obedience so to
-do), that all that he described he had seen with his own eyes, or heard
-the same reported by credible and substantial witnesses," Odoricus
-prepared to set out on another and a longer journey "into all the
-countries of the heathen." He, therefore, determined to present himself
-to Pope John XXII., and to obtain his benediction on his missionary
-enterprise. Accordingly, at the commencement of the year 1331, he left
-Utina with this intention. On his way, however, he was met, near Pisa,
-by an old man who, hailing him by his name, told him that he had known
-him in India, and warned him to return to his monastery, "for that in
-ten days thence he would depart from this present world." Having said
-this, he vanished from sight. Odoricus obeyed the admonition, and
-returned to Utina "in perfect health, feeling no crazednesse nor
-infirmity of body. And being in his convent the tenth day after the
-forsayd vision, having received the Communion, and prepared himself unto
-God, yea, being strong and sound of body, he happily rested in the Lord,
-whose sacred departure was signified to the Pope aforesaid under the
-hand of the public notary of Utina." Odoricus died January 14th, 1331,
-and was beatified.
-
-
-C (p. 11).
-
-SIGISMUND VON HERBERSTEIN.
-
-Sigismund von Herberstein was born at Vippach, in Styria, in 1486. He
-distinguished himself so greatly in the war against the Turks that the
-Emperor entrusted him with various missions, and made him successively
-commandant of the Styrian cavalry, privy councillor, and president of
-finance of Austria. During two periods of residence at Moscow, in all
-about sixteen months, as ambassador from the Emperor Maximilian to the
-Grand Duke of Muscovy, Vasilez Ivanovich, he earnestly studied and
-sagaciously observed everything that came under his notice, and
-neglected nothing which could instruct or profit him. His work on
-Russia, above referred to, is universally regarded as the best ancient
-history of that State. He renounced public life in 1555, and died in
-1556.
-
-
-D (p. 14).
-
-JULIUS CÆSAR SCALIGER.
-
-Julius Cæsar Scaliger, born in 1484, probably at Padua, was one of the
-most celebrated of the many great writers of the sixteenth century. He
-was a man of real talent, but of unbounded vanity and unscrupulous
-ambition. Originally baptized "Jules," he added "Cæsar" to his name,
-and, to enhance his own merits by the éclat of high birth, made for
-himself a false genealogy, and asserted that he was the hero of
-adventures in which he had taken no part. In order to force himself into
-notice he attacked Erasmus, and in two harangues, which the latter
-disdained to answer, used towards him the grossest invectives. Scaliger
-next directed his insolent hostility against Girolamo Cardano. Jealous
-of the fame of the great Pavian physician and mathematician, he, in a
-critique containing more insults than arguments, ferociously assailed
-Cardano's treatise, "_De Subtilitate_"; and so exaggerated was the
-estimate he formed of the effect of his diatribes on the objects of his
-malice, that when Erasmus died, and a false rumour of the decease of
-Cardano was spread abroad, he believed, or affected to believe, that the
-death of both had been caused by his conduct towards them, and in the
-course of a fulsome eulogy expressed his regret for having deprived the
-world of letters of two such valuable lives. Scaliger died in 1558, aged
-seventy-five years.
-
-
-E (p. 21).
-
-JANS JANSZOON STRAUSS, OTHERWISE JEAN DE STRUYS.
-
-Jean de Struys, in 1647, shipped at Amsterdam as sailmaker's mate on
-board a vessel bound to Genoa. On arriving there the ship was bought by
-the Republic, equipped as a privateer, and sent to the East Indies. She
-was, however, captured by the Dutch, and Struys took service on board a
-ship belonging to the Dutch East India Company, and after visiting Siam,
-Japan, Formosa, &c., he returned to Holland in 1681. Having stayed at
-home with his father for four years, he went to sea again, but finding
-at Venice an armed flotilla on the point of departure to fight the
-Turks, he joined it, was several times taken prisoner, and as often
-escaped or was rescued. In 1657 he returned to Holland, was married, and
-led a quiet life for ten years, but hearing that the Tzar was fitting
-out at Amsterdam some vessels to go to Persia by the Caspian Sea,
-"nothing," to use his own words, "could hold him back." He therefore
-started in a vessel bound to the Baltic, landed at Riga, and found his
-way overland, through Moscow and by the Oka and Volga to Astrachan. In
-June, 1670, the fleet in which he served set sail for the Caspian. His
-vessel went ashore on the coast of Daghestan, and he was made prisoner
-and taken to the Kan or Tchamkal of Bayance, by whom he was sold as a
-slave to a Persian. After passing through the possession of several
-masters he was bought by a Georgian, an ambassador to the King of
-Poland, who allowed him to purchase his freedom. On the 30th of October,
-1671, he joined a caravan travelling to Ispahan, made his way to the
-coast, embarked for Batavia, and, after innumerable adventures, arrived
-in Holland in 1673, and retired to Ditmarsch, where he died in 1694. His
-memoirs of his life were published in Dutch, at Amsterdam, in 1677, and
-translated into German in the following year, and into French in 1681.
-
-
-F (p. 28).
-
-JOHN BELL OF AUTERMONY.
-
-Furnished with letters of introduction to Dr. Areskine, chief physician
-and privy councillor to the Czar Peter I., Bell "embarked at London in
-July, 1714, on board the _Prosperity_ of Ramsgate, Captain Emerson, for
-St. Petersburg." As the Czar was about to send an ambassador, Artemis
-Petronet Valewsky, to "the Sophy of Persia, Schach Hussein," Bell, by
-the good offices of Dr. Areskine, obtained an appointment in his suite,
-and set out from St. Petersburg on the 15th of July, 1715. He kept a
-diary, and was evidently an enlightened, discriminating and careful
-observer.
-
-
-G (p. 52).
-
-THE THREE BLACK CROWS.
-
-BY DR. JOHN BYROM.
-
-The following is the story referred to in the text. It well illustrates
-the process by which the first rumour concerning cotton--that "wool as
-white and soft as that of a lamb grew on trees"--was exaggerated to a
-statement that "lambs grew on certain trees," and were, therefore,
-partly animal and partly vegetable.
-
-    Two honest tradesmen, meeting in the Strand,
-    One took the other briskly by the hand.
-    "Hark ye," said he, "'tis an odd story this
-    About the crows!" "I don't know what it is,"
-    Replied his friend. "No? I'm surprised at that,--
-    Where I come from it is the common chat;
-    But you shall hear an odd affair indeed!
-    And that it happened they are all agreed:
-    Not to detain you from a thing so strange,
-    A gentleman who lives not far from 'Change,
-    This week, in short, as all the Alley knows,
-    Taking a vomit, threw up three black crows!"
-    "Impossible!" "Nay, but 'tis really true;
-    I had it from good hands, and so may you."
-    "From whose, I pray?" So, having named the man,
-    Straight to inquire his curious comrade ran.
-    "Sir, did you tell?"--relating the affair--
-    "Yes, sir, I did; and, if 'tis worth your care,
-    'Twas Mr.--such a one--who told it me;
-    But, by-the-bye, 'twas _two_ black crows, _not three_!"
-    Resolved to trace so wonderous an event,
-    Quick to the third the virtuoso went.
-    "Sir,"--and so forth. "Why, yes; the thing is fact,
-    Though in regard to number not exact;
-    It was not _two_ black crows, 'twas only _one_!
-    The truth of which you may depend upon;
-    The gentleman himself told me the case."
-    "Where may I find him?" "Why in--" such a place.
-    Away he went, and having found him out,
-    "Sir, be so good as to resolve a doubt;"
-    Then to his last informant he referred,
-    And begged to know if true what he had heard.
-    "Did you, sir, throw up a black crow?" "Not I!"
-    "Bless me, how people propagate a lie!
-    Black crows have been thrown up, _three_, _two_, and _one_;
-    And here, I find, all comes at last to _none_!
-    Did you say nothing of a crow at all?"
-    "Crow?--crow?--perhaps I might; now I recall
-    The matter over." "And pray, sir, what was't?"
-    "Why, I was horrid sick, and at the last
-    I did throw up, and told my neighbours so,
-    Something that was--_as black_, sir, _as a crow_."
-
-
-H (p. 71).
-
-THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ALEXANDRINE LIBRARY.
-
-This magnificent collection, founded by Ptolemy Soter, and added to by
-his successors, was twice partially dispersed before its total
-destruction by the Saracens. A great portion of it was burned during the
-siege of Alexandria by Julius Cæsar, B.C. 48. The lost volumes were in
-some measure replaced by Antony, who (B.C. 36) presented to Cleopatra,
-the library of the Kings of Pergamus. At the death of Cleopatra,
-Alexandria passed into the power of the Romans, and this second
-collection was partly destroyed by fire when the Emperor Theodosius I.
-suppressed paganism, A.D. 390. The Alexandrine Library met its memorable
-fate in 638, when, after a vigorous resistance for fourteen months, the
-city was taken by Amru, the general of Caliph Omar. Abdallah, the
-Arabian historian, and favourite of Saladin (1200), gives the following
-account of this catastrophe. "John Philoponus, surnamed the Grammarian,
-being at Alexandria when the Saracens entered the city, was admitted to
-familiar intercourse with Amru, and presumed to solicit a gift,
-inestimable in his opinion, but contemptible in that of the
-barbarians,--and that was the royal library. Amru was inclined to
-gratify his wish, but his rigid integrity scrupled to alienate the least
-object without the consent of the Caliph. He accordingly wrote to Omar,
-whose well-known answer is a notable example of ignorant fanaticism.
-'If,' said he, 'these writings of the Greeks agree with the Koran they
-are useless, and need not be preserved; if they disagree with the book
-of God they are pernicious, and ought to be destroyed.' The sentence of
-destruction was executed with blind obedience; the volumes of paper or
-parchment were distributed to the 4,000 baths of the city; and so great
-was their number that six weeks was barely sufficient time for the
-consumption of this precious fuel."
-
-
-
-
-INDEX.
-
-
-  Ahasuerus, cotton hangings in the palace of, at Shushan, 66
-  Alexander the Great, descent of the Indus and Hydaspes by, 68
-      "          "     sagacity and wise policy of, 67, 72
-      "          "     opens up the Euphrates and Tigris, 71
-      "          "     selects the site of Alexandria, 68
-      "          "     Europe indebted to, for the introduction of
-                       cotton, 72
-  Alexandria made the centre of the Indian trade, 72
-      "      Lighthouse, Library, and Temple of Serapis at, 71
-      "      destruction of the Library of--Appendix H, 105
-  Amasis II., Corselet padded with cotton presented to Sparta by King,
-              46
-  Aristobulus mentions "a tree bearing wool, which was carded," 47
-       "      report by, of the great heat at Susiana-Shushan, 66
-  Arrian's account of the cotton trade in his day, 73
-
-  Barnacle Geese, the fable of, compared with that of the Barometz, 52
-  Barometz the, described by Sir John Mandeville, 2
-      "       "       "      Claude Duret, 5, 16
-      "       "       "      Talmudical writers, 6
-      "       "       "      Odoricus of Friuli, 8
-      "       "       "      Fortunio Liceti, 11
-      "       "       "      Juan Eusebio Nieremberg, 11
-      "       "       "      Sigismund von Herberstein, 11
-      "       "       "      Guillaume Postel, 13
-      "       "       "      Michel, the Interpreter, 13
-      "       "       "      Girolamo Cardano, 13
-      "       "       "      Julius Cæsar Scaliger, 14
-      "       "       "      Antonius Deusingius, 15
-      "       "       "      Athanasius Kircher, 21
-      "       "       "      Jean de Struys, 21
-      "       "  in verse by Guillaume de Saluste, Sieur du Bartas, 17
-      "       "       "      Joshua Sylvester, translator of the above,
-                             18
-      "       "       "      Dr. Erasmus Darwin, 35
-      "       "       "      Dr. De la Croix, 36
-      "       "   sought for by Dr. Engelbrecht Kaempfer, 23
-      "       "       "      "  John Bell, of Autermony, 28, Appendix F,
-                                103
-      "       "       "      "  the Abbé Chappe d'Auteroche, 30
-  Barometz, origin of the word, 23
-      "     the fable of the, 1
-      "        "        "     compared with that of the "Barnacle
-                              Geese," 52
-      "        "        "     its various phases and transformations, 1,
-                              53
-  Bartas, the Sieur du, lines by, on the Barometz, 17
-  Bell, John, seeks ineffectually the "Vegetable Lamb," 28
-  Borametz. _See_ Barometz.
-  Breyn, Dr., describes to the Royal Society his Chinese artificial
-  "Lamb," 30
-  British Museum, specimen of the "Scythian Lamb" in, 24, 43
-  Buckley, Mr., Chinese articles presented to the Royal Society by, 27
-     "      "   his Chinese dog fashioned from rhizome of a fern, 27
-
-  Canal from Suez to the East Nile commenced by Ptolemy Philadelphus, 71
-    "     "     "    Aden, constructed by De Lesseps, 94
-  Cape route, the, discovered by Vasco da Gama, 83, 88
-  Cardano describes the "Vegetable Lamb," 13
-     "    exposes the unreasonableness of believing the fable, 14
-  Central America, ancient use of cotton in, 85, 86
-  Chappe d'Auteroche, the Abbé seeks for the "Barometz," 30
-  Chinese artificial dogs made from root-stocks of ferns, 27, 28, 34,
-  39, 44
-  Columbus finds cotton in use in America, 84
-  Cotton, its use of great antiquity in India, 65
-    "     reaches Persia from India, 66
-    "     hangings of, in the palace of Ahasuerus at Shushan, 66
-    "     found in use in India by Alexander the Great, 58
-    "     piece-goods introduced into Europe by the Macedonians, 72
-    "     shipped from Patala and Barygaza to Aduli, 72
-    "     conveyed by a circuitous coasting route, 73
-    "         "    in a straight course by Hippalus, 73
-    "         "    by the Romans viâ Palmyra, 74
-    "     the trade in, through Egypt, checked by the Saracens, 74
-    "     ancient Egyptians unacquainted with, 75
-    "     breast-plate padded with, sent by King Amasis to Sparta, 46,
-          75
-    "     Mark Antony's soldiers wear, in Egypt, 76
-    "     Egyptians, till the 17th century, importers, not growers of,
-          77
-    "     in Rome and Greece manufactured by slaves, 78
-    "     vestments presented to ancient Emperors of China, 79
-    "     manufactured by the Moors and Saracens in Spain, 80
-    "     paper made from, by the Spanish Arabs, 80
-    "     manufacture in Spain relapsed after the conquest of Grenada,
-          80
-    "     conveyed by Tartar caravans from India to Europe, 56, 57, 58,
-          81, 82
-          conveyed again through Egypt by the Venetians, 82
-    "     manufacture in Saxony, the Netherlands, and Germany, 83
-    "     found by Columbus in daily use in the West Indies, 84
-    "        "     Magalhaens in use in Brazil, 84
-    "     used by the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians, 85, 86
-    "     mummy cloths brought from ancient Peruvian tombs, 86
-    "     imported into England in the 16th century through Antwerp, 91
-    "     statistics, 92
-    "     now crosses from India by the route planned by Alexander, 95
-  Cotton-plant, the, described by Theophrastus, 47
-        "        "        "       Pomponius Mela, 48
-        "        "        "       Julius Pollux, 49
-        "       botany of the, 63
-        "       the, indigenous to India, 64
-        "        "   noticed in India by Alexander and his army, 58
-        "       culture of the, in China encouraged by the Mongols, 79
-        "        "        "        Arabia and Syria, 77
-        "        "        "        Spain by the Saracens and Moors, 80
-        "        "        "          "   relapsed after the conquest of
-                                         Grenada, 80
-        "       the, still grows wild in the Peninsula, 81
-  Cotton-wool the fleece of the "Scythian Lamb," 63
-  Ctesias writes of the "trees that bear wool," 46
-
-  Danielovich, Demetrius, describes the "Vegetable Lamb" to Von
-  Herberstein, 12
-  Darwin, Dr. Erasmus, lines by, on the "Barometz," 35
-  De la Croix, Dr., Latin lines by, on the Barometz, 36
-  Deusingius, Antonius, disbelieves the animal-plant monstrosity, 15
-  Dicksonia barometz a tree-fern, 40
-      "        "     toy dogs made from rhizomes of, by the Chinese, 41
-      "        "     does not grow in Tartary or Scythia, 44
-  Duret, Claude, describes the "Barometz," 3
-    "      "     avows his entire belief in the rumour, 16
-
-  East India Company incorporated, 92
-  Egypt, the route from India to Europe planned by Alexander, 68, 93, 95
-    "    conquest of, by the Saracens, 7
-    "    the country of flax, 75, 79
-    "    the high road to India to be guarded, 96
-  Egyptian maritime traffic with the East lasted 1000 years, 74
-  Egyptians, the ancient, unacquainted with cotton, 75
-      "      till the 17th century importers not growers of cotton, 77
-
-  Ferns, models of dogs made of, by the Chinese, 27, 28, 34, 39, 44
-    "    their economic value, 40, 41
-  Flemish weavers settle in Manchester, 90
-
-  General belief in the "Vegetable Lamb," 2
-
-  Hebrew, ancient, version of the fable, 6
-  Herberstein, Sigismund von, describes the "Vegetable Lamb," 11
-  Herodotus writes of trees bearing for their fruit fleeces of wool, 46
-  Hippalus notices the monsoons, 73
-
-  India, use of cotton in, mentioned by Herodotus, 46
-    "         "         "         "     Ctesias, 46
-    "         "         "         "     Nearchus, 46
-    "         "         "         "     Aristobulus, 47
-    "         "         "         "     Strabo, 47
-    "    the Indo-Scythia of the ancients, 57
-    "    cotton indigenous to, 64
-    "    trade with opened by Alexander viâ Egypt, 68
-    "         "     viâ the Euphrates and Tigris, 71
-    "         "     restored to Egypt by the Venetians, 82
-    "    the Cape route to, discovered by Vasco da Gama, 83, 88
-  Indo-Scythia, identical with Scinde and the Punjab, 57
-
-  Japanese artificial mermaids compared with Chinese toy-dogs, 42, 54
-  Jadua, or Jeduah, the, 7
-
-  Kircher, Athanasius, declares the Barometz to be a plant, 21
-  Kaempfer, Dr. Engelbrecht, searches ineffectually for the Vegetable
-                             Lamb, 23
-     "       "       "       suggests that the fable refers to Astrachan
-                             lamb skins, 23
-
-  Lamb, the "Scythian," why so called, 56
-   "     "     "        see "Barometz."
-   "     "  "Tartarian," why so called, 59
-   "     "     "        see "Barometz."
-   "     "  Vegetable, its fleece cotton wool, 60
-   "     "     "        see "Barometz."
-  Lesseps, De, constructs the Suez Canal, 94
-  Liceti, Fortunio, says the "Vegetable Lamb" was "as white as snow," 11
-  Loureiro, Juan de, describes the making of artificial dogs from ferns,
-  44
-
-  Magalhaens, Fernando, discovers the route round Cape Horn, 84
-  Manchester, Flemish weavers settle in, 90
-  Mandeville, Sir John, describes the "Vegetable Lamb," 2
-       "      "     "   biographical sketch of--Appendix A, 97
-  Mela, Pomponius, describes the cotton-plant, 48
-  Mermaids, Japanese, compared with Chinese dogs, 42, 54
-  Mexicans, the ancient, use of cotton by, 85, 86
-  Michel, the Interpreter, describes the "Vegetable Lamb" and its uses,
-  13
-  Monsoons, the, noticed by Hippalus, 73
-  Museum, British, supposed "Scythian Lamb" in the, 24, 43
-     "    Natural History. _See_ Museum, British.
-     "    Hunterian, R. Coll. Surgeons, supposed Scythian Lamb in the,
-  43
-
-  Nearchus mentions the "wool-bearing trees," 46
-     "     descent of the Indus by, 68
-  Nieremberg, on the "Vegetable Lamb," 11
-
-  Odoricus of Friuli describes the "Vegetable Lamb," 8
-     "          "    curious incident in the life of--Appendix B, 100
-
-  Peruvians, the ancient, use of cotton by, 86, 87
-  Pliny confuses cotton with flax, 48
-  Pollux, Julius, describes the cotton-plant, 49
-  Postel, Guillaume, informs von Herberstein of the "wool-bearing
-  plant," 13
-  Ptolemy Soter follows Alexander's policy and takes possession of
-                Egypt, 71
-    "       "   founds the lighthouse, library and temple at Alexandria,
-                71
-    "     Philadelphus commences a canal from Suez to the East Nile, 71
-
-  Royal Society, supposed "Scythian Lamb" laid before the, by Sir Hans
-  Sloane, 24
-  Royal Society, supposed "Scythian Lamb" laid before the, by Dr. Breyn,
-  30
-
-  Saluste, Guillaume de, Sieur du Bartas. _See_ "Bartas."
-  Scaliger, Julius Cæsar, attacks Cardano on the subject of the
-  "Barometz," 14
-  Scythian Lamb, the, why so called, 56
-      "     "     "   see "Barometz."
-  Scythians, the, describe snow as "feathers," 51
-  Scythia-Indo the same as Scinde and the Punjab, 57
-     "    in Asia identical with Tartary, 57
-     "    Parva identical with certain districts of Silistria and
-  Bessarabia, 57
-  Shushan, cotton hangings in the palace of Ahasuerus at, 66
-  Sloane, Sir Hans, lays before the Royal Society a supposed "Scythian
-                    Lamb," 24
-     "     "    "   identification of the above by, unsatisfactory, 28
-     "     "    "   bequest by, to the Nation, 43
-  Strabo mentions the "wool-bearing trees," 47
-  Strauss Jans Janszoon. _See_ "Struys."
-  Struys, Jean de, mentions the "Barometz," 21
-     "       "     doubts the "animal" version of the story, 22
-  Suez Canal completed by De Lesseps, 94
-
-  Talmudical writers mention the "Barometz," under the name of "Jadua,"
-  7
-  Tartary identical with Scythia in Asia, 57
-  Tartar caravans, cotton conveyed by, to Europe, 56, 57, 58, 81, 82
-  Tartarian Lamb, the, why so called, 59
-      "      "      "  see "Barometz."
-  Theophrastus writes of the cultivation of the "wool-bearing tree," 47
-       "       exactly describes the cotton-plant, 48
-  Trees, wool-bearing, described by Herodotus, 46
-     "          "          "        Ctesias, 46
-     "          "          "        Nearchus, 46
-     "          "          "        Aristobulus, 47
-     "          "          "        Strabo, 47
-     "          "          "        Theophrastus, 47
-     "          "          "        Pomponius Mela, 48
-     "          "          "        Pliny, 48
-     "          "          "        Julius Pollux, 49
-
-  Vasco da Gama opens the Cape route to India, 83, 88
-  Vegetable Lamb, the, its fleece cotton wool, 60
-      "      "     "   see "Barometz."
-
-  Waghorn, Lieut., opens the route across the desert, 93
-  Wool-bearing trees. _See_ Trees, wool-bearing.
-
-  Zavolha, the, a renowned Tartar horde, 12, 14
-
-
-  LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
-  STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
-
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-Transcriber's Notes:
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-spelling, except as mentioned below. Inconsistent lay-out has not been
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-context, possibly the year should be 1651.
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-minor typographical errors have been corrected silently.
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-to that used in the text.
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-Title: The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary
-       A Curious Fable of the Cotton Plant
-
-Author: Henry Lee
-
-Release Date: July 28, 2013 [EBook #43343]
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-Language: English
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 </body>
 </html>
diff --git a/43343.txt b/43343.txt
deleted file mode 100644
index 3553b82..0000000
--- a/43343.txt
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,3763 +0,0 @@
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, by Henry Lee
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
-
-
-Title: The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary
-       A Curious Fable of the Cotton Plant
-
-Author: Henry Lee
-
-Release Date: July 28, 2013 [EBook #43343]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ASCII
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VEGETABLE LAMB OF TARTARY ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Chris Curnow, Harry Lame and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
-file was produced from images generously made available
-by The Internet Archive)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber's Notes:
-
-Italic texts in the original work have been transcribed as _text_. Small
-capitals in the original work have been transcribed as ALL CAPITALS.
-[oe] stands for the oe-ligature, [y] for the letter yogh. Greek words
-have been transcribed as [Greek: ... ].
-
-More Transcriber's Notes may be found at the end of this text.
-
-
-[Illustration: Planta Tartarica Boromez.
-
-THE "BAROMETZ," OR "TARTARIAN LAMB."
-
-_After Joannes Zahn._]
-
-
-
-
-  THE VEGETABLE LAMB
-  OF
-  TARTARY;
-
-  _A Curious Fable of the Cotton Plant._
-
-  TO WHICH IS ADDED
-  A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF COTTON AND
-  THE COTTON TRADE.
-
-  BY
-
-  HENRY LEE, F.L.S., F.G.S., F.Z.S.,
-  SOMETIME NATURALIST OF THE BRIGHTON AQUARIUM,
-  AND
-  AUTHOR OF 'THE OCTOPUS, OR THE DEVIL-FISH OF FICTION AND OF FACT,'
-  'SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED,' 'SEA FABLES EXPLAINED,' ETC.
-
-  ILLUSTRATED.
-
-  LONDON:
-  SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON,
-  CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.
-  1887.
-
-  _All Rights reserved._
-
-
-
-
-  LONDON:
-  PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
-  STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS.
-
-
-                                                                    PAGE
-
-  CHAPTER I.
-
-  THE FABLE AND ITS INTERPRETATION                                     1
-
-
-  CHAPTER II.
-
-  THE HISTORY OF COTTON AND ITS INTRODUCTION INTO EUROPE              63
-
-
-  APPENDIX                                                            97
-
-  INDEX                                                              107
-
-
-
-
-LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
-
-
-  FIG.                                                              PAGE
-
-  THE "BAROMETZ," OR "TARTARIAN LAMB."--_After Joannes Zahn_
-                                                          _Frontispiece_
-
-  1.--THE VEGETABLE LAMB PLANT.--_After Sir John Mandeville_           3
-
-  2.--PORTRAIT OF THE "BAROMETZ," OR "SCYTHIAN LAMB."--_After Claude
-  Duret_                                                               9
-
-  3.--ADAM AND EVE ADMIRING THE PLANTS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN. THE
-  "VEGETABLE LAMB" IN THE BACKGROUND.--_Fac-simile of the
-  Frontispiece of Parkinson's "Paradisus"_                            19
-
-  4.--RHIZOME OF A FERN, SHAPED BY THE CHINESE TO REPRESENT A TAN-
-  COLOURED DOG, AND LAID BEFORE THE ROYAL SOCIETY BY SIR HANS SLOANE
-  AS A SPECIMEN OF THE "BAROMETZ," OR "TARTARIAN LAMB."--_From the
-  'Philosophical Transactions,' vol. xx., p. 861_                     25
-
-  5.--ROUGH MODEL OF A TAN-COLOURED DOG, SHAPED BY THE CHINESE FROM
-  THE RHIZOME OF A FERN, AND SUBMITTED TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY BY DR.
-  BREYN AS A SPECIMEN OF THE "SCYTHIAN VEGETABLE LAMB," OR
-  BORAMETZ.--_From the 'Philosophical Transactions,' No. 390_         31
-
-  6.--THE "BORAMETZ," OR "SCYTHIAN LAMB."--_From De la Croix's
-  'Connubia Florum'_                                                  37
-
-  7.--A COTTON-POD                                                    61
-
-
-
-
-PREFACE.
-
-
-The fable of the existence of a mysterious "plant-animal" variously
-entitled "_The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary_," "_The Scythian Lamb_," and
-"_The Barometz_," or "_Borametz_," is one of the curious myths of the
-Middle Ages with which I have been long acquainted. Until the year 1883,
-not having given serious thought to it, or made it a subject of critical
-examination, I had been content to accept as correct the explanation of
-it now universally adopted; namely, that it originated from certain
-little lamb-like toy figures ingeniously constructed by the Chinese from
-the rhizome and frond-stems of a tree-fern, which, from its
-identification with the object of the fable, has received the name of
-_Dicksonia Barometz_. But during my researches in the works of ancient
-writers when preparing the manuscript of my two books, '_Sea Monsters
-Unmasked_,' and '_Sea Fables Explained_,' I came upon passages of old
-authors which convinced me that these toy "lambs" made from ferns by the
-Chinese had no more connexion with the story of "_The Vegetable Lamb_"
-than the artificial mermaids so cleverly constructed by the Japanese
-were the cause and origin of the ancient and world-wide belief in
-mermaids. Subsequent investigations have confirmed this opinion.
-
-I have found that all of these old myths which I have been able to trace
-to their source have originated in a perfectly true statement of some
-curious and interesting fact; which statement has been so garbled and
-distorted, so misrepresented and perverted in repetition by numerous
-writers, that in the course of centuries its original meaning has been
-lost, and a monstrous fiction has been substituted for it. "Truth lies
-at the bottom of a well," says the adage; and in searching for the
-origin of these old myths and legends, the deeper we can dive down into
-the past the greater is the probability of our discovering the truth
-concerning them. To obtain a clue to the identity of "_The Scythian
-Lamb_" we must consult the pages of historians and philosophers who
-lived and wrote from eighteen to sixteen centuries before Sir John
-Mandeville published his version of the story; and, having there found
-set before us the real "_Vegetable Lamb_" in all its truthful simplicity
-and beauty, we shall be able to recognise its form and features under
-the various disguises it was made to assume by the wonder-mongers of the
-Middle Ages.
-
-I venture to believe that the reader who will kindly follow my argument
-(p. 42, _et seq._) will agree with me that the rumour which spread from
-Western Asia all over Europe, and was a subject of discussion by learned
-men during many centuries, of the existence of "a tree bearing fruit, or
-seed-pods, which when they ripened and burst open were seen to contain
-little lambs, of whose soft white fleeces Eastern people wove material
-for their clothing," was a plant of far higher importance to mankind
-than the paltry toy animals made by the Chinese from the root of a fern,
-of which gew-gaws only four specimens are known to have been brought to
-this country. It seems to me clear and indisputable that the rumour
-referred to the cotton-pod, and originated in the first introduction of
-cotton and the fabrics woven from it into Eastern Europe.
-
-It will be seen that the explanation of the process by which the
-truthful report of a remarkable fact was in time perverted into the
-detailed history of an absurd fiction is very easy and intelligible.
-
-As this little book was originally intended for publication, like its
-predecessors before-mentioned, as a hand-book in connection with the
-Literary Department of the South Kensington Exhibitions, I have treated
-in a separate chapter of the history of cotton, its use by ancient races
-in Asia, Africa, and America, and its gradual introduction amongst the
-nations of Europe. The various stages of its progress Westward were so
-distinctly and intimately dependent on many remarkable events in the
-world's history, by which its advance was alternately retarded and
-facilitated, that the annals of the "_vegetable wool_" which holds so
-important a place amongst the manufacturing industries of Great Britain
-are hardly less romantic than the fable of "_The Vegetable Lamb_," which
-was its forerunner.
-
-  HENRY LEE.
-
-  SAVAGE CLUB.
-
-  _May, 1887._
-
-
-
-
-  THE
-  VEGETABLE LAMB OF TARTARY
-
-  A CURIOUS FABLE OF THE
-  COTTON PLANT.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I.
-
-THE FABLE AND ITS INTERPRETATION.
-
-
-Amongst the curious myths of the Middle Ages none were more extravagant
-and persistent than that of the "Vegetable Lamb of Tartary," known also
-as the "Scythian Lamb," and the "Borametz," or "Barometz," the latter
-title being derived from a Tartar word signifying "a lamb." This "lamb"
-was described as being at the same time both a true animal and a living
-plant. According to some writers this composite "plant-animal" was the
-fruit of a tree which sprang from a seed like that of a melon, or gourd;
-and when the fruit or seed-pod of this tree was fully ripe it burst open
-and disclosed to view within it a little lamb, perfect in form, and in
-every way resembling an ordinary lamb naturally born. This remarkable
-tree was supposed to grow in the territory of "the Tartars of the East,"
-formerly called "Scythia"; and it was said that from the fleeces of
-these "tree-lambs," which were of surpassing whiteness, the natives of
-the country where they were found wove materials for their garments and
-"head-dress." In the course of time another version of the story was
-circulated, in which the lamb was not described as being the fruit of a
-tree, but as being a living lamb attached by its navel to a short stem
-rooted in the earth. The stem, or stalk, on which the lamb was thus
-suspended above the ground was sufficiently flexible to allow the animal
-to bend downward, and browze on the herbage within its reach. When all
-the grass within the length of its tether had been consumed the stem
-withered and the lamb died. This plant-lamb was reported to have bones,
-blood, and delicate flesh, and to be a favourite food of wolves, though
-no other carnivorous animal would attack it. Many other details were
-given concerning it, which will be found mentioned in the following
-pages. This legend met with almost universal credence from the
-thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, and, even then, only gave place
-to an explanation of it as absurd and delusive as itself. Following the
-outline sketched in the preface, I shall, in this chapter, lay before
-the reader the story of the "Barometz" or "Vegetable Lamb," as related
-by various writers, and shall then give my reasons for assigning to the
-fable an interpretation very different from that which has been hitherto
-accepted as the true one.
-
-The story of a wonderful plant which bore living lambs for its fruit,
-and grew in Tartary, seems to have been first brought into public notice
-in England in the reign of Edward III., by Sir John Mandeville, the
-"Knyght of Ingelond that was y bore in the toun of Seynt Albans, and
-travelide aboute in the worlde in many diverse countreis, to se
-mervailes and customes of countreis, and diversiteis of folkys, and
-diverse shap of men and of beistis." In the 26th chapter of the book in
-which he "wrot and telleth all the mervaile that he say," and which he
-dedicated to the King, he treats of "the Countreis and Yles that ben
-be[y]ond the Lond of Cathay, and of the Frutes there"; and amongst the
-curiosities he met with in the dominions of the "Cham" of Tartary he
-mentions the following:--
-
-[Illustration: FIG. 1.--THE VEGETABLE LAMB PLANT.
-
-_After Sir John Mandeville._
-
-This plate illustrates that version of the Fable by which the "Vegetable
-Lamb" is represented as contained within a fruit, or seed-pod, which,
-when ripe, bursts open, and discloses the little lamb within it.]
-
-"Now schalle I seye [y]ou semyngly of Countrees and Yles that ben
-be[y]onde the Countrees that I have spoken of. Wherefore I seye you in
-passynge be the Lond of Cathaye toward the high Ynde, and towards
-Bacharye, men passen be a Kyngdom that men clepen Caldilhe: that is a
-fair Contree. And there growethe a maner of Fruyt, as though it weren
-Gowrdes: and whan thei ben rype men kutten hem ato, and men fynden with
-inne a lytylle Best, in Flesche, in Bon and Blode, as though it were a
-lytylle Lomb with outen Wolle. And Men eten both the Frut and the Best;
-and that is a great Marveylle. Of that Frute I have eaten; alle thoughe
-it were wondirfulle, but that I knowe wel that God is marveyllous in his
-Werkes."[1]
-
-  [1] 'The Voiage and Travaile of Sir John Maundevile, Knt.' See
-  Appendix A.
-
-Sir John Mandeville appears to have never previously heard of this
-strange plant, but reports of its existence under various phases may be
-traced back, as we shall presently see, to a date at least eighteen
-hundred years earlier than that of his mention of it. As it is in the
-works of these older writers that we shall find the long-sought key of
-the mystery, we will set them aside for the present and follow the
-growth and dissemination of the fable.
-
-Claude Duret, of Moulins, who, in his '_Histoire Admirable des Plantes_
-(1605),' devotes to it a chapter entitled "The Boramets of Scythia, or
-Tartary, true Zoophytes or plant-animals; that is to say, plants living
-and sensitive like animals," therein says:--
-
-"I remember to have read some time ago in a very ancient Hebrew book
-entitled in Latin the _Talmud Ierosolimitanum_, and written by a Jewish
-Rabbi Jochanan, assisted by others, in the year of salvation 436, that a
-certain personage named Moses Chusensis (he being a native of Ethiopia)
-affirmed, on the authority of Rabbi Simeon, that there was a certain
-country of the earth which bore a zoophyte, or plant-animal, called in
-the Hebrew '_Jeduah_.' It was in form like a lamb, and from its navel
-grew a stem or root by which this zoophyte or plant-animal was fixed,
-attached, like a gourd, to the soil below the surface of the ground,
-and, according to the length of its stem or root, it devoured all the
-herbage which it was able to reach within the circle of its tether. The
-hunters who went in search of this creature were unable to capture or
-remove it until they had succeeded in cutting the stem by well-aimed
-arrows or darts, when the animal immediately fell prostrate to the earth
-and died. Its bones being placed with certain ceremonies and
-incantations in the mouth of one desiring to foretell the future, he was
-instantly seized with a spirit of divination, and endowed with the gift
-of prophecy."
-
-As I was unable to find in the Latin translation of the Talmud of
-Jerusalem the passage mentioned by Claude Duret, and was anxious to
-ascertain whether any reference to this curious legend existed in the
-Talmudical books, I sought the assistance of learned members of the
-Jewish community, and, amongst them, of the Rev. Dr. Hermann Adler,
-Chief Rabbi Delegate of the United Congregations of the British Empire.
-He most kindly interested himself in the matter, and wrote to me as
-follows:--
-
-"It affords me much gratification to give you the information you
-desire on the Borametz. In the Mishna _Kilaim_, chap. viii. Sec. 5 (a
-portion of the Talmud), the passage occurs:--'Creatures called _Adne
-Hasadeh_ (literally, "lords of the field") are regarded as beasts.'
-There is a variant reading,--_Abne Hasadeh_ (stones of the field). A
-commentator, Rabbi Simeon, of Sens (died about 1235), writes as follows
-on this passage:--'It is stated in the Jerusalem Talmud that this is a
-human being of the mountains: it lives by means of its navel: if its
-navel be cut it cannot live. I have heard in the name of Rabbi Meir, the
-son of Kallonymos of Speyer, that this is the animal called '_Jeduah_.'
-This is the '_Jedoui_' mentioned in Scripture (lit. _wizard_, Leviticus
-xix. 31); with its bones witchcraft is practised. A kind of large stem
-issues from a root in the earth on which this animal, called '_Jadua_,'
-grows, just as gourds and melons. Only the '_Jadua_' has, in all
-respects, a human shape, in face, body, hands, and feet. By its navel it
-is joined to the stem that issues from the root. No creature can
-approach within the tether of the stem, for it seizes and kills them.
-Within the tether of the stem it devours the herbage all around. When
-they want to capture it no man dares approach it, but they tear at the
-stem until it is ruptured, whereupon the animal dies.' Another
-commentator, Rabbi Obadja of Berbinoro, gives the same explanation, only
-substituting--'They aim arrows at the stem until it is ruptured,' &c.
-The author of an ancient Hebrew work, Maase Tobia (Venice, 1705), gives
-an interesting description of this animal. In Part IV. c. 10, page 786,
-he mentions the Borametz found in Great Tartary. He repeats the
-description of Rabbi Simeon, and adds what he has found in 'A New Work
-on Geography,' namely, that 'the Africans (_sic_) in Great Tartary, in
-the province of Sambulala, are enriched by means of seeds like the seeds
-of gourds, only shorter in size, which grow and blossom like a stem to
-the navel of an animal which is called _Borametz_ in their language,
-i.e. '_lamb_,' on account of its resembling a lamb in all its limbs,
-from head to foot; its hoofs are cloven, its skin is soft, its wool is
-adapted for clothing, but it has no horns, only the hairs of its head,
-which grow, and are intertwined like horns. Its height is half a cubit
-and more. According to those who speak of this wondrous thing, its taste
-is like the flesh of fish, its blood as sweet as honey, and it lives as
-long as there is herbage within reach of the stem, from which it derives
-its life. If the herbage is destroyed or perishes, the animal also dies
-away. It has rest from all beasts and birds of prey, except the wolf,
-which seeks to destroy it.' The author concludes by expressing his
-belief, that this account of the animal having the shape of a lamb is
-more likely to be true than that it is of human form."
-
-We have an interesting record of another journey into Tartary,
-undertaken almost simultaneously with that of Sir John Mandeville, by
-Odoricus of Friuli, a Minorite friar belonging to the monastery of
-Utina, near Padua. The exact date of his departure on his travels is not
-mentioned, but he returned home in 1330, and the history of his
-adventures and observations[2] was written in the month of May of that
-year--thus taking precedence by about thirty years of the narrative of
-the old English traveller.
-
-  [2] 'The Journall of Frier Odoricus of Friuli, one of the order of the
-  Minorites, concerning strange things which he saw amongst the Tartars
-  of the East.'--'Hakluyt Collection of Early Voyages,' vol. ii. 1809.
-  See Appendix B.
-
-Odoricus, describing his visit to the country of the "Grand Can,"
-says:--"I heard of another wonder from persons worthy of credit; namely,
-that in a province of the said Can, in which is the mountain of
-Capsius[3] (the province is called 'Kalor'), there grow gourds, which,
-when they are ripe, open, and within them is found a little beast like
-unto a young lamb, even as I myself have heard reported that there stand
-certain trees upon the shore of the Irish Sea bearing fruits like unto a
-gourd, which at a certain time of the year do fall into the water and
-become birds called Bernacles; and this is true."
-
-  [3] Probably an error of transcription for "Caspius." The mountain of
-  Caspius (now Kasbin) is about eighty miles due south of the Caspian
-  Sea, and in Persian territory, near Teheran.
-
-[Illustration: FIG. 2.--PORTRAIT OF THE "BAROMETZ," OR "SCYTHIAN LAMB."
-
-_After Claude Duret._]
-
-In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the "Scythian Lamb" was made
-a subject of investigation and argument by some of the most celebrated
-writers of that period.
-
-Fortunio Liceti, Professor of Philosophy at Padua, writing in 1518,[4]
-gives his complete credence to the story of the little beast like a lamb
-found within a fruit-pod when it bursts from over-ripeness; and besides
-the above passage from Odoricus quotes another, by which it would appear
-that the worthy friar afterwards himself saw this botanical curiosity,
-and described it as being "as white as snow." I have been unable to find
-this paragraph in the Hakluyt edition of Odoricus's travels.
-
-  [4] '_De Spontaneo Viventium Ortu_,' lib. 3, cap. 45.
-
-Juan Eusebio Nieremberg, however, in his '_Historia Naturae_' (Antwerp,
-1605), also quotes these two passages, and in exactly the same words. He
-probably copied them from Liceti, and not from the original.
-
-Sigismund, Baron von Herberstein, who, in 1517 and 1526, was the
-ambassador of the Emperors Maximilian I. and Charles V. to the "Grand
-Czard, or Duke of Muscovy," in his 'Notes on Russia,'[5] gives further
-details of this "vegetable-animal." He writes:--"In the neighbourhood
-of the Caspian Sea, between the rivers Volga and Jaick, formerly dwelt
-the kings of the Zavolha, certain Tartars, in whose country is found a
-wonderful and almost incredible curiosity, of which Demetrius
-Danielovich, a person in high authority, gave me the following account;
-namely, that his father, who was once sent on an embassy by the Duke of
-Muscovy to the Tartar king of the country referred to, whilst he was
-there, saw and remarked, amongst other things, a certain seed like that
-of a melon, but rather rounder and longer, from which, when it was set
-in the earth, grew a plant resembling a lamb, and attaining to a height
-of about two and a half feet, and which was called in the language of
-the country 'Borametz,' or 'the little Lamb.' It had a head, eyes, ears,
-and all other parts of the body, as a newly-born lamb. He also stated
-that it had an exceedingly soft wool, which was frequently used for the
-manufacturing of head-coverings. Many persons also affirmed to me that
-they had seen this wool. Further, he told me that this plant, if plant
-it should be called, had blood, but not true flesh: that, in place of
-flesh, it had a substance similar to the flesh of the crab, and that its
-hoofs were not horny, like those of a lamb, but of hairs brought
-together into the form of the divided hoof of a living lamb. It was
-rooted by the navel in the middle of the belly, and devoured the
-surrounding herbage and grass, and lived as long as that lasted; but
-when there was no more within its reach the stem withered, and the lamb
-died. It was of so excellent a flavour that it was the favourite food of
-wolves and other rapacious animals. For myself," adds the Baron,
-"although I had previously regarded these Borametz as fabulous, the
-accounts of it were confirmed to me by so many persons worthy of
-credence that I have thought it right to describe it; and this with the
-less hesitation because I was told by Guillaume Postel,[6] a man of much
-learning, that a person named Michel, interpreter of the Turkish and
-Arabic languages to the Republic of Venice, assured him that he had seen
-brought to Chalibontis (now Karaboghaz), on the south-eastern shore of
-the Caspian Sea, from Samarcand and other districts lying towards the
-south, the very soft and delicate wool of a certain plant used by the
-Mussulmans as padding for the small caps which they wear on their shaven
-heads, and also as a protection for their chests. He said, however, that
-he had not seen the plant, nor knew its name, except that it was called
-'Smarcandeos,' and was a zoophyte, or plant-animal. The numerous
-descriptions given to him," he added, "differed so little that he was
-induced to believe that there was more truthfulness in this matter than
-he had supposed, and to accept it as a fact redounding to the glory of
-the Sovereign Creator, to whom all things are possible."
-
-  [5] '_Rerum Muscoviticarum Commentarii_,' 1549. See Appendix C.
-
-  [6] Author of '_Liber de Causis, seu de Principiis et Originibus
-  Naturae_,' &c.
-
-Shortly after the publication of the above narrative by Sigismund von
-Herberstein, and probably in allusion to it, Girolamo Cardano, of Pavia,
-carefully discussed the phenomenon in question in his work '_De Rerum
-Natura_,'[7] printed at Nuernberg in 1557. He endeavoured to expose the
-absurdity of the statements made concerning this "animal-plant," and
-explained the physical impossibility of its existence in the manner
-described. He argued that if it had blood it must have a heart, and that
-the soil in which a plant grows is not fitted to supply a heart with
-movement and vital heat. He also pointed out that embryo animals,
-especially, require warmth for their development from the _ovum_, which
-they could not obtain if raised from a seed planted in the earth,
-demonstrating clearly enough that no warm-blooded animal could exist
-thus organically fastened to the earth. In reply, however, to a possible
-question suggested by himself, why there should be no plant-animal on
-land, seeing that there are zoophytes in the sea, he, with the weakness
-and indecision which were innate in his character, admitted that "where
-the atmosphere was thick and dense there might, perhaps, be a plant
-having sensation, and also imperfect flesh, such as that of mollusks and
-fishes."
-
-  [7] Lib. vi. cap. 22.
-
-This weak point in his argument laid him open to the criticism of his
-relentless enemy, Julius Caesar Scaliger. Always on the watch to wound
-and harass Cardano with cutting satire and irritating gibes, this
-caustic persecutor lost no time in making his attack. In one of his
-"_Exercitationes_"[8] he thus personally addressed the object of his
-sneering disparagement:--
-
-  [8] '_Exotericarum Exercitationum_,' lib. xv., "_De Subtilitate_"; _ad
-  Hieronymum Cardanum Exercit._ 181, cap. 29. Frankfort, 1557. See
-  Appendix D.
-
-"You may regard as beyond ridicule this wonderful Tartar plant. The most
-renowned of the Tartar hordes of the present day, by its reputation, its
-antiquity, and its nobility, is that of the Zavolha. These people sow a
-seed like that of the melon, but rather smaller, from which springs and
-grows out of the earth a plant which they call 'Borametz,' _i.e._ 'the
-Lamb.' This plant grows to the height of three feet in the likeness of a
-real lamb, having feet, hoofs, ears, and a head perfect with the
-exception of horns, instead of which the plant has hairs in the form of
-horns. Its skin is soft and delicate, and is used in Tartary for
-head-gear. The internal pulp is said to be like the flesh of the
-cray-fish, and to have an agreeable flavour; but if an incision be
-made, real blood flows from it. The root or stalk which rises from the
-earth is attached to the navel of the lamb, and (which is more
-remarkable) whilst the plant is surrounded with herbage it lives as does
-a lamb, but as soon as it has consumed all within its reach it withers
-and dies. This does not happen by the arrival of the plant at any
-definite period of its growth, for it has been found by experiment that
-if the grass around it be removed it perishes. Another most curious
-circumstance connected with it is that wolves will eat it with avidity,
-though no other carnivorous animals will attack it. This," says
-Scaliger, still apostrophizing Cardano, "is merely a little sauce and
-seasoning to your allusion to the fable of the Lamb; but I would like to
-know from you how four distinct legs and their feet can be produced from
-one stem."
-
-It is very remarkable that this dissertation of Scaliger, which is
-really a keen satire on Cardano, and a sarcastic repetition of his
-version of the fable with ironical comments thereon, has been almost
-invariably taken as serious, and regarded as an expression of his entire
-belief in the "Scythian Lamb," as described. Of all subsequent writers
-on the subject, Deusingius[9] seems to have been the only one who
-clearly perceived Scaliger's intention and meaning. Hence, many profound
-believers in the myth have claimed as their champion one who would have
-derided them for their credulity.
-
-  [9] Antonius Deusingius, Professor of Medicine, and Rector of the
-  University of Groningen, in his '_Fasciculus Dissertationum
-  Selectorum_,' p. 598, printed in 1660, declares his own utter
-  disbelief in this animal-vegetable monstrosity, and after quoting
-  Scaliger, thus writes of him:--"_Haec equidem Scaliger, qui tamen ne
-  serio historiam narrare credatur quam ipse revera pro fabulosa habet,
-  nequaquam vero approbat, ut perperam de eo refert Sennert._"--_Hyp.
-  Physic._ 5, cap. 8.
-
-Claude Duret, for example, whose implicit faith in the marvellous
-zoophyte nothing could shake, quotes verbatim in its defence the remarks
-of "le grand Jules Cesar Scaliger," and asks[10] triumphantly,--
-
-  [10] '_Histoire admirable des Plantes_,' p. 322.
-
-"Who cannot see plainly that Cardano, after having long doubted, and
-after having adduced philosophical arguments drawn from the works of
-Aristotle and other eminent writers, felt himself obliged and condemned
-to confess that in a place filled with heavy and dense air (such as is
-Tartary) the Borametz--true plant-animals--might exist as described, as
-well as sponges, 'sea-nettles,' and 'sea-lungs,' which every one knows
-are true zoophytes, or animal-plants."
-
-After this amusing assumption that the air of Tartary possesses the
-"weight" and "density" necessary for the production of plant-animals,
-Duret quotes from Sir John Mandeville's book in the language in which it
-was originally written--the Romanic--the passage which I have extracted
-from the old English version of the enterprising knight's 'Voiage and
-Travailes,' and also cites, in confirmation of the prodigy, the account
-given of it by the Baron Von Herberstein. He then strongly expresses his
-own belief that--
-
-"Of all the strange and marvellous trees, shrubs, plants and herbs which
-Nature, or, rather, God himself, has produced, or ever will produce in
-this Universe, there will never be seen anything so worthy of admiration
-and contemplation as these 'Borametz' of Scythia, or Tartary,--plants
-which are also animals, and which browze and eat as quadrupeds.... If I
-did not entirely believe this I would denounce it as fabulous, instead
-of accepting it as a fact; but those who are in the habit of daily
-studying good and rare books, printed and in manuscript, and who are
-endowed with great wisdom and understanding, know that there is no
-impossibility in Nature, _i.e._ God himself, to whom be all the honour
-and glory!"
-
-Besides the authors already quoted, and others who merely copied the
-narratives of their predecessors, Guillaume de Saluste, the Sieur du
-Bartas, accepted as authentic the story of the Vegetable Lamb. In his
-poem "_La Semaine_," published in 1578, in which the first few days of
-the existence of all terrestrial things are described reverently and
-with considerable power, he represents this plant as one of those which
-excited the astonishment of the newly-created Adam as he wandered on the
-first day of the second week through the Garden of Eden, the earthly
-Paradise in which he had been placed.
-
-    "Or, confus, il se perd dans les tournoyements,
-    Embrouillees erreurs, courbez desvoyements,
-    Conduits virevoultez, et sentes desloyales
-    D'un Dedale infiny qui comprend cent Dedales,
-    Clos non de romarins dextrement cizelez
-    En hommes, my-chevaux, en courserots seelez,
-    En escaillez oyseaux, en balenes cornues,
-    Et mille autres facons de bestes incogneues,
-    Ains de vrays animaux en la terre plantez,
-    Humant l'air des poulmons, et d'herbes alimentez,
-    Tels que les Boramets, qui chez les Scythes naissent
-    D'une graine menues, et des plantes repaissent;
-    Bien que du corps, des yeux, de la bouche, et du nez,
-    Ils semblent des moutons qui sont naguieres naiz.
-    Ils le seroient du vray, si dans l'alme poictrine
-    De terre ils n'enfoncoient une vive racine
-    Qui tient a leur nombril, et tombe le meme jour
-    Quils ont broutte le foin qui croissoit a l'entour,
-    O, merveilleux effect de dextre divine,
-    La plante a chair et sang, l'animal a racine,
-    La plante comme en rond de soymeme se meut,
-    L'animal a des pieds, et si marcher ne peut:
-    La plante est sans rameaux, sans fruict, et sans feuillage,
-    L'animal sans amour, sans sexe, et vif lignage;
-    La plante a belles dents, paist son ventre affame
-    Du fourrage voisin, l'animal est seme."
-
-Joshua Sylvester, the admiring translator of Du Bartas,[11] gives the
-following version of the above lines:--
-
-  [11] 'Du Bartas: His Divine Weekes and Workes, translated and
-  dedicated to the King's most excellent Maiestie by Joshua Sylvester,
-  London. 1584.'
-
-    "Musing, anon through crooked walks he wanders,
-    Round winding rings, and intricate meanders.
-    False-guiding paths, doubtful, beguiling, strays,
-    And right-wrong errors of an endless maze;
-    Nor simply hedged with a single border
-    Of rosemary cut out with curious order
-    In Satyrs, Centaurs, Whales, and half-men-horses,
-    And thousand other counterfeited corses;
-    But with true beasts, fast in the ground still sticking
-    Feeding on grass, and th' airy moisture licking,
-    Such as those Borametz in Scythia bred
-    Of slender seeds, and with green fodder fed;
-    Although their bodies, noses, mouths, and eyes,
-    Of new-yeaned lambs have full the form and guise,
-    And should be very lambs, save that for foot
-    Within the ground they fix a living root
-    Which at their navel grows, and dies that day
-    That they have browzed the neighbouring grass away.
-    Oh! wondrous nature of God only good,
-    The beast hath root, the plant hath flesh and blood.
-    The nimble plant can turn it to and fro,
-    The nummed beast can neither stir nor goe,
-    The plant is leafless, branchless, void of fruit,
-    The beast is lustless, sexless, fireless, mute:
-    The plant with plants his hungry paunch doth feede,
-    Th' admired beast is sowen a slender seed."
-
-About the middle of the seventeenth century very little belief in the
-story of the "Scythian Lamb" remained amongst men of letters, although
-it continued to be a subject of discussion and research for at least
-a hundred and fifty years later.
-
-[Illustration: FIG. 3.--ADAM AND EVE ADMIRING THE PLANTS IN THE GARDEN
-OF EDEN. THE "VEGETABLE LAMB" IN THE BACKGROUND.
-
-_Fac-simile of the Frontispiece of Parkinson's "Paradisus"_]
-
-Athanasius Kircher, Professor of Mathematics at Avignon, who wrote[12]
-in 1641, after following the error of his predecessors of quoting
-Scaliger as a believer in the myth, says:--
-
-  [12] '_Magnes; sive de arte magnetica opus tripartitum_,' p. 730.
-
-"Some authors have regarded it as an animal, some as a plant; whilst
-others have classed it as a true zoophyte. In order not to multiply
-miracles, we assert that it is a plant. Though its form be that of a
-quadruped, and the juice beneath its woolly covering be blood which
-flows if an incision be made in its flesh, these things will not move
-us. It will be found to be a plant."
-
-This unwavering prediction has been fulfilled. But the story had to pass
-through many vicissitudes of acceptance and disbelief before this
-decision of Kircher was unanimously admitted to be correct. It seems to
-have been the fate of this curious fable, through the whole period of
-its history, that no sooner has a ray of some author's common sense
-penetrated the mist of superstition by which it was surrounded than it
-has been again befogged by the ignorant credulity of the next writer on
-the subject.
-
-Jans Janszoon Strauss, a Dutchman, better known as Jean de Struys, who
-travelled through many countries, and amongst them Tartary, from 1647 to
-1672, describes[13] this vegetable wonder. But he was an uneducated and
-credulous man, and his account of it is little more than a repetition of
-the errors and fallacies of former centuries concerning it, rendered
-still more incomprehensible by his having confused with its "very white
-down, as soft as silk," the Astrachan lamb-skins, which were then, and
-are still, a well-known article of commerce. He says:--
-
-  [13] '_Voyages de Jean de Struys en Moscovie, en Tartarie, et en
-  Perse_,' chap. xii. p. 167. Amsterdam. 1681. Also an English
-  translation, "done out of Dutch," by John Morrison. London. 1684. See
-  Appendix E.
-
-"On the west side of the Volga is a great dry and waste heath, called
-the Step. On this heath is a strange kind of fruit found, called
-'Baromez' or 'Barnitsch,' from the word 'Boran,' which is "a Lamb" in
-the Russian tongue, because of its form and appearance much resembling a
-sheep, having head, feet and tail. Its skin is covered with a down very
-white and as soft as silk. The Tartars hold this in great esteem, and it
-is sold for a high price. I have myself paid five or six roubles for one
-of these skins, and doubled my money when I sold it again. The greater
-number of persons have them in their houses, where I have seen many.
-That which caused me to observe it with greater attention was that I had
-seen one of these fruits among the curiosities in the house of the
-celebrated Mr. Swammerdam, in Amsterdam, whose museum is full of the
-rarest things in Nature from distant and foreign lands. This precious
-plant was given to him by a sailor who had been formerly a slave in
-China. He found it growing in a wood, and brought away sufficient of its
-skin to make an under-waistcoat. The description he gave of it did very
-much agree with what the inhabitants of Astrachan informed me of it. It
-grows upon a low stalk, about two and a half feet high, some higher, and
-is supported just at the navel. The head hangs down, as if it pastured
-or fed on the grass, and when the grass decays it perishes: but this I
-ever looked upon as ridiculous; although when I suggested that the
-languishing of the plant might be caused by some temporary want of
-moisture, the people asseverated to me by many oaths that they have
-often, out of curiosity, made experience of that by cutting away the
-grass, upon which it instantly fades away. Certain it is that there is
-nothing which is more coveted by wolves than this, and the inward parts
-of it are more congeneric with the anatomy of a lamb than mandrakes are
-with men. However, what I might further say of this fruit, and what I
-believe of the wonderful operations of a secret sympathy in Nature, I
-shall rather keep to myself than aver, or impose upon the reader with
-many other things which I am sensible would appear incredible to those
-who had not seen them."
-
-The next traveller, in order of date, who made the Tartarian Lamb the
-object of his investigations was Dr. Engelbrecht Kaempfer, who, in 1683,
-accompanied an embassy to Persia, and was appointed Surgeon to the Dutch
-East India Company two years later. He reported, on his return, that he
-had searched "_ad risum et nauseam_" for this "zoophyte feeding on
-grass," that there was nothing in the country where it was believed to
-grow that was called "Borametz," except the ordinary sheep, and that all
-accounts of a sheep growing upon a plant were mere fiction and fable.
-"The word 'Borametz,'" he says,[14] "is a corruption of the Russian
-'Boranetz,' in Polish 'Baranak,' the diminutive of which, 'Baran,' is
-Sclavonic. In such a case it signifies 'a sheep.' But," he continues,
-"there is in some of the provinces near the Caspian Sea a breed of sheep
-totally different from those with which we are commonly acquainted, and
-highly valued for the elegance of the skin, which is used in various
-articles of clothing by the Tartars and Persians. For the magnates and
-the rich who desire a material superior to that worn by the general
-population, the skins of the youngest lambs are preserved, the fleeces
-of these being much softer that those of the older ones, and the younger
-the animal from which they are taken the more costly are they." He then
-refers to the barbarous custom of killing the ewes before the time of
-natural parturition to obtain possession of the immature fleece of the
-unborn lamb, and says, correctly, that the earlier the stage of
-pregnancy in which this operation is performed the finer and softer is
-the fur of the f[oe]tal skin, and the lighter and closer are the little
-curls for which it is chiefly prized. The pelt, also, is so thin that it
-is scarcely heavier than a membrane, and, in drying, it frequently
-shrinks so as to lose all similitude to the skin of a lamb, and assumes
-a form which might lead the ignorant and credulous to believe that it
-was a woolly gourd. He, therefore, conjectures that some of these dried
-and shrunken skins may have been placed in museums as examples of the
-fleece of the "Tartarian Lamb," under the supposition that they were of
-vegetable origin.
-
-  [14] '_Am[oe]nitatum Exoticarum politico-physico-medicarum
-  fasciculi_,' x., lib. 3, obs. 1. Lemgo, 1712. Kaempfer's MSS. and
-  collections were acquired by Sir Hans Sloane, and were deposited in
-  the British Museum.
-
-Kaempfer's suggestions were ingenious, though his theory was erroneous.
-But, although he rather impeded than assisted in the correct
-identification of the object of discussion, he, at least, helped to
-discredit the myth, which he declared to be one of those "received with
-favour by the superstitious, and which when once they have found a
-writer to describe them, however incorrectly, please the many, obtain
-numerous adherents, and become respectable by age."
-
-[Illustration: FIG. 4.--RHIZOME OF A FERN, SHAPED BY THE CHINESE TO
-REPRESENT A TAN-COLOURED DOG, AND LAID BEFORE THE ROYAL SOCIETY BY SIR
-HANS SLOANE AS A SPECIMEN OF THE "BAROMETZ," OR "TARTARIAN LAMB."
-
-_From the 'Philosophical Transactions,' vol. xx. p. 861._]
-
-An important chapter in the history of this curious fiction was reached
-when, in 1698, Sir Hans Sloane[15] laid before the Royal Society an
-object which has ever since been generally regarded as a specimen of the
-strange natural production about which so much mystery had existed,
-so many outrageous stories had been told, and on which so much learned
-discussion had been expended. His description of it is printed in the
-Society's Transactions, and is as follows:--
-
-  [15] Philosophical Transactions, vol. xx. p. 861; and Lowthorp's
-  Abridgment of the Phil. Trans. vol. ii. p. 649.
-
-"The figure (fig. 4) represents what is commonly, but falsely, in India,
-called 'the Tartarian Lamb,' sent down from thence by Mr. Buckley.[16]
-This was more than a foot long, as big as one's wrist, having seven
-protuberances, and towards the end some foot-stalks about three or four
-inches long, exactly like the foot-stalks of ferns, both without and
-within. Most part of this was covered with a down of a dark yellowish
-snuff colour, some of it a quarter of an inch long. This down is
-commonly used for spitting of blood, about six grains going to a dose,
-and three doses pretended to cure such a haemorrhage. In Jamaica are many
-scandent and tree ferns which grow to the bigness of trees, and have
-such a kind of _lanugo_ on them, and some of the capillaries have
-something like it. It seemed to be shaped by art to imitate a lamb, the
-roots or climbing parts being made to resemble the body, and the extant
-foot-stalks the legs. This down is taken notice of by Dr. Merret at the
-latter end of Dr. Grew's Mus. Soc. Reg. by the name of 'Poco Sempie,' a
-'golden moss,' and is there said to be a cordial. I have been assured by
-Mr. Brown, who has made very good observations in the East Indies, that
-he has been told by those who lived in China that this down or hair is
-used by them for the stopping of blood in fresh wounds, as cob-webs are
-with us, and that they have it in so great esteem that few houses are
-without it; but on trials I have made of it, though I may believe it
-innocent, yet I am sure it is not infallible."
-
-  [16] This specimen evidently came from China; for I find a record that
-  at the date of Sir Hans Sloane's paper "Mr. Buckley, Chief Surgeon at
-  Fort St. George, in the East Indies, presented to the Royal Society a
-  cabinet containing Chinese surgical and other instruments and
-  simples."
-
-Sir Hans Sloane had, it is true, clearly perceived the nature of the
-specimen sent to the Royal Society by Mr. Buckley, and had correctly
-identified it as a portion of one of the arborescent ferns; but on the
-question whether he had discovered the right interpretation of the
-puzzling enigma I shall have more to say presently. The object figured
-seems to have been regarded by many of his contemporaries as so
-insufficient to meet the requirements of the oft-told story of the
-plant-animal, and so unsatisfactory an explanation of it, that every one
-who subsequently had an opportunity of visiting Tartary still felt it to
-be his duty to make enquiries concerning the famous prodigy of that
-country.
-
-Accordingly, we find that John Bell, of Autermony, availed himself of
-the opportunity afforded him by a diplomatic journey to Persia,[17] in
-1715-1722, to endeavour, whilst in Tartary, to obtain authentic
-information respecting the "Vegetable Lamb." He found that nothing was
-known of it in the country where it was supposed to be indigenous, and
-thus writes of it:--
-
-  [17] 'Travels from St. Petersburg in Russia to various parts of Asia,
-  in 1716, 1719, 1722, &c., by John Bell, of Autermony. Dedicated to the
-  Governor, Court of Assistants, and Freemen of the Russia Company.
-  London. 1764.' See Appendix F.
-
-"Before I leave Astracan, it may be proper to rectify a mistaken opinion
-which I have observed to occur in grave German authors, who, in treating
-of the remarkable things of this country relate that there grows in this
-desart, or stepp adjoining to Astracan, in some plenty, a certain shrub
-or plant called in the Russian language 'Tartasky Borashka,' _i.e._
-'Tartarian Lamb,' with the skins of which the caps of the Armenians,
-Persians, Tartars, &c., are faced. They also write that the 'Tartashky
-Borashka' partakes of animal, as well as vegetative life, and that it
-eats up and devours all the grass and weeds within its reach. Though it
-may be thought that an opinion so very absurd could find no credit with
-people of the meanest understanding, yet I have conversed with some who
-were much inclined to believe it, so very prevalent is the prodigious
-and absurd with some part of mankind. In search of this wonderful plant
-I walked many a mile accompanied by Tartars who inhabit these desarts;
-but all I could find out were some dry bushes, scattered here and there,
-which grow on a single stalk with a bushy top of a brownish colour: the
-stalk is about eighteen inches high, the top consisting of sharp prickly
-leaves. It is true that no grass or weeds grow within the circle of its
-shade--a property natural to many other plants, here and elsewhere.
-After a careful enquiry of the more sensible and experienced among the
-Tartars, I found they laughed at it as a ridiculous fable."
-
-Bell further says:--
-
-"In Astracan they have large quantities of lamb-skins, grey and black,
-some waved and others curled, all naturally and very pretty, having a
-fine gloss, especially the waved, which at a small distance appear like
-the richest watered tabby:[18] they are much esteemed, and are much used
-for the lining of coats and the turning up of caps, in Persia, Russia,
-and other parts. The best of these are brought from Bucharia, China, and
-the countries adjacent, and are taken from the ewe's belly after she
-hath been killed, or the lamb is killed immediately after it is lambed,
-for such a skin is equal in value to the sheep. The Kalmuks and those
-Tartars who inhabit the desert in the neighbourhood of Astracan have
-also lamb-skins which are applied to the same purpose, but the wool of
-these being rougher and more hairy, they are inferior to those of
-Bucharia and China both in gloss and beauty, and also in the dressing;
-consequently in value. I have known one single lamb-skin from Bucharia
-sold for five or six shillings sterling, when one of these would not
-yield two shillings."
-
-  [18] A rich watered silk: from the French "_tabis_"; Italian,
-  "_tabi_"; Persian, "_retabi_."
-
-Bell had sufficient discrimination to see that these Astracan lamb-skins
-were in no way connected with the fable of the "Borametz," and thus
-avoided the error of Kaempfer, who regarded them as having given rise to
-the reports of the existence of that marvellous "animal-plant."
-
-The Abbe Chappe-d'Auteroche, during his visit to Tartary,[19] about half
-a century later than John Bell, sought for the "Scythian Lamb" with
-equal earnestness and with similar want of success.
-
-  [19] 'Voyage en Siberie,' Paris. 1768.
-
-Long, however, before the result of the investigations of these two
-travellers had been made known, a second manipulated fern-root, similar
-to that described by Sir Hans Sloane, had been subjected to the scrutiny
-of another keen and scientific observer.
-
-[Illustration: FIG. 5.--ROUGH MODEL OF A TAN-COLOURED DOG, SHAPED BY THE
-CHINESE FROM THE RHIZOME OF A FERN, AND SUBMITTED TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY
-BY DR. BREYN AS A SPECIMEN OF THE "SCYTHIAN VEGETABLE LAMB."
-
-_From the 'Philosophical Transactions,' No. 390._]
-
-In September, 1725, Dr. John Philip Breyn, of Dantzic, addressed to the
-Royal Society of London an important communication in Latin on this
-subject,[20] in which he expressed his complete disbelief in the old
-story, and described a specimen of the "Borametz" (as he believed it
-to be) which had fallen into his hands, and which had led him,
-independently, to the same conclusion as that arrived at by Sir Hans
-Sloane, of whose observations, he says, he was unaware when his own
-memoranda were written. Commencing by quoting the maxim, "_Non fingendum
-sed inveniendum quid Natura faciat aut ferat_," he urges upon all who
-search for the hidden treasures of Nature, or who desire to discover her
-secrets, to bear in mind that golden axiom that "the works and
-productions of Nature should be discovered, not invented," and remarks
-that, if the older writers had adhered to this, Natural History, great
-and honourable in itself, would not have been tarnished by so many silly
-fables like that of the "Scythian Lamb." He directs attention to the
-fact that none of those who have described this plant-animal are able to
-say that they ever saw it growing; quotes Kaempfer's interpretation of
-the origin of the report, namely the Astrachan lamb-skins of commerce,
-and hesitates to regard the object in his possession as the key of the
-problem. That he had grave and sufficient reasons for his doubts upon
-this point will be seen from his interesting description of the
-curiosity referred to. He says:--
-
-  [20] '_Dissertiuncula de Agno Vegetabili Scythico, Borametz vulgo
-  dicto._' Phil. Trans., vol. xxxiii. p. 353, 1725; and also in Martyn's
-  Abridgment of the Phil. Trans., vol. vi. p. 317.
-
-"A certain learned and observant man, passing through our city on his
-return from a journey through Muscovy, enriched my museum with, amongst
-other natural curiosities, one of these 'Scythian Lambs,' which he
-declared to be the genuine Borametz. It was about six inches in length,
-and had a head, ears, and four legs. Its colour was that of iron-rust,
-and it was covered all over with a kind of down, like the fibres of
-silk-plush, except upon the ears and legs, which were bare, and were of
-a somewhat darker tawny hue. On careful examination of it, I discovered
-that it was not an animal production, nor yet a fruit, but either the
-thick creeping root, or the climbing stem, of some plant, which by
-obstetric art had acquired the form of a quadruped animal. For the four
-legs, which looked as if the feet had been cut off from them, were so
-many stalks which had supported leaves, as were also those which formed
-the ears, and which more nearly resembled horns. The fibres emerging
-from these, by which, like other plants, this root or stalk had conveyed
-nutriment, left no doubt upon this point. Close inspection also showed
-that one of the front legs had been artificially inserted, and that the
-head and neck were not of one continuous substance with the body, but
-had been very cleverly and neatly joined on to it. In fact, this root,
-or stem, had been skilfully manipulated into the form of a lamb in the
-same artful manner as the little figures of men, which, it was said,
-shrieked and dropped human blood when drawn from the ground, were formed
-from the roots of the mandragore and bryony."
-
-Dr. Breyn added that there remained in his mind some doubt as to the
-plant from which this burlesque of nature and art was fabricated, until
-the similarity of its ferruginous silky fibres to those of some of the
-capillaries suggested the thought that it must be a portion of some
-exotic fern. As to the particular species to which it belonged he was
-unable to pronounce an authoritative opinion, but, hoping in the course
-of time to receive more certain information concerning it, he would
-merely say that he believed it was of a peculiar species found in
-Tartary, and up to that date undescribed.
-
-Dr. Breyn's confirmation of Sir Hans Sloane's identification of the
-"Scythian Lamb" as the stem or rootlet of a fern artificially and
-cleverly manipulated was a crushing blow to the already weakened fable.
-Unfortunately, however, the conclusion thus arrived at was utterly
-misleading, though it not only satisfied his contemporaries, but has
-ever since--even to the present day--been universally accepted as the
-correct interpretation of the problem. The injurious result was, that,
-as the question appeared to have been set at rest, enquiry ceased, and
-for nearly sixty years afterwards no more was heard of the "Vegetable
-Lamb."
-
-Towards the close of the century two eminent botanists, who were, of
-course, well acquainted with the specimens that had been described by
-Sir Hans Sloane and Dr. Breyn, were constrained in writing of the poetry
-of their science to make the legendary "Borametz" their theme.
-
-Dr. Erasmus Darwin, in 1781, contributed to the literature of the
-subject the following lines[21]:--
-
-  [21] 'The Botanic Garden.' A poem in two parts; with philosophical
-  notes. London. 1781.
-
-    "E'en round the Pole the flames of love aspire,
-    And icy bosoms feel the secret fire,
-    Cradled in snow, and fanned by Arctic air,
-    Shines, gentle Borametz, thy golden hair;
-    Rooted in earth, each cloven foot descends,
-    And round and round her flexile neck she bends,
-    Crops the grey coral moss, and hoary thyme,
-    Or laps with rosy tongue the melting rime;
-    Eyes with mute tenderness her distant dam,
-    And seems to bleat--a 'vegetable lamb.'"
-
-Dr. Erasmus Darwin appears to have bestowed "golden hair" upon his
-Borametz, to assimilate it to the fern-root toys that were regarded as
-its prototypes; but as the fern of which they were made is a native of
-Southern China, and as no author has described the lamb-plant as being
-found in a cold climate, his authority and his motive for locating it in
-an arctic region are alike inexplicable.
-
-Dr. De la Croix, the other botanical author above referred to, extolled,
-in 1791, the fabulous animal-plant in a Latin poem[22] which Bishop
-Atterbury characterized as "excellent, and approaching very near to the
-versification of Virgil's 'Georgics.'"
-
-  [22] 'Connubia Florum, Latino Carmine Demonstrata.' Bath. 1791.
-
-                                "Qui Caspia sulcant
-    AEquora, sive legant spumosa Boristhenis ora
-    Sive petant Asiam velis, et Colchica regna,
-    Hinc atque inde stupent visu mirabile monstrum:
-    Surgit humo Borames. Praecelso in stipite fructus
-    Stat quadrupes. Olli vellus. Duo cornua fronte
-    Lanea, nec desunt oculi; rudis accola credit
-    Esse animal, dormire die, vigilare per umbram,
-    Et circum exesis pasci radicitus herbis:
-    Carnibus Ambrosiae sapor est, succique rubentes
-    Posthabeat quibus alma suum Burgundia Nectar;
-    Atque loco si ferre pedem Natura dedisset,
-    Balatu si posset opem implorare voracis
-    Ora lupi contra, credas in stirpe sedere
-    Agnum equitem, gregibusque agnorum albescere colles."
-
-As this has not been "done into English" (to use an old phrase), I
-venture to offer the following translation of it:--
-
-    "The traveller who ploughs the Caspian wave
-    For Asia bound, where foaming breakers lave
-    Borysthenes' wild shores, no sooner lands
-    Than gazing in astonishment he stands;
-    For in his path he sees a monstrous birth,
-    The Borametz arises from the earth:
-    Upon a stalk is fixed a living brute,
-    A rooted plant bears quadruped for fruit,
-    It has a fleece, nor does it want for eyes,
-    And from its brows two woolly horns arise.
-    The rude and simple country people say
-    It is an animal that sleeps by day
-    And wakes at night, though rooted to the ground,
-    To feed on grass within its reach around.
-    The flavour of Ambrosia its flesh
-    Pervades; and the red nectar, rich and fresh,
-    Which vineyards of fair Burgundy produce
-    Is less delicious than its ruddy juice.
-    If Nature had but on it feet bestowed,
-    Or with a voice to bleat the lamb endowed,
-    To cry for help against the threat'ning fangs
-    Of hungry wolves; as on its stalk it hangs,
-    Seated on horseback it might seem to ride,
-    Whit'ning with thousands more the mountain side."
-
-[Illustration: FIG. 6.--THE "BORAMETZ," OR "SCYTHIAN LAMB."
-
-_From De la Croix's 'Connubia Florum.'_
-
-The central figure is a copy of Zahn's picture of the fabulous
-plant-animal; the other two are taken from fern-root specimens supposed
-to be "Vegetable Lambs."]
-
-We must now leave the poetical view of the subject, and come to facts.
-
-The substance of which the artificial animals exhibited by Sir Hans
-Sloane and Dr. Breyn were constructed is the long root-stock of a fern
-of the genus _Dicksonia_, of which there are from thirty to thirty-five
-species, varying greatly in size, in their mode of growth, and in the
-cutting of their fronds. Some of them, such as _D. antarctica_, a native
-of Australia and New Zealand, often seen in our greenhouses, are
-tree-like in habit, having stems from ten to forty feet in height, and
-fronds two or three yards in length, and two feet or more across; whilst
-others have root-stocks creeping along the surface of the ground. The
-genus is most fully represented in tropical America and Polynesia: one
-species extends as far north as the United States and Canada, and
-another was introduced into this country from St. Helena. In some
-species, such as _D. Molluccensis_, from Java, the stems are furnished
-with strong hooked prickles; in others they are densely clad at the base
-with a thick coat of yellow-brown hairs, which shine almost like
-burnished gold. The stems of _D. Sellowiana_, from tropical America, are
-so thickly clad with long fibrous hairs, changing to brown or nearly
-black, that it has been said they precisely resemble the thighs of the
-howling monkeys.[23]
-
-  [23] See 'European Ferns,' by James Britten, F.L.S.; with coloured
-  illustrations from Nature, by Dr. Blair, F.L.S. Cassell. London.--A
-  work full of information on the culture, classification, and history
-  of ferns. I am indebted to it for many of the details here given of
-  the economic value of ferns.
-
-The species of _Dicksonia_ which has been supposed to have given origin
-to the fable of the "Scythian Lamb" has, from that circumstance,
-received the name of _Barometz_. It was formerly known as _Cibotium
-glaucescens_. It was introduced into cultivation in conservatories in
-this country about the year 1830, and was shortly afterwards described
-as _Cibotium barometz_, but the genus _Cibotium_ is now generally united
-with _Dicksonia_. Its long caudex, or root-stock, creeps over the
-surface of the ground in the same manner as that of the better known
-"Hare's-foot" fern, _Davallia Canariensis_, and this is covered with
-long silky hairs, or scales, which look something like wool when old and
-dry. These hairs or scales have been sometimes used as a styptic in
-Germany, and also, very commonly, in China, as related to Sir Hans
-Sloane by Dr. Brown. The similar hairs of other species of _Dicksonia_,
-natives of the Sandwich Islands, are exported to the extent of many
-thousands of pounds weight annually under the name of "Pulu," and are
-used in the stuffing of mattrasses, cushions, &c. The hairs of _D.
-culcita_ are similarly utilised in Madeira. No more than two or three
-ounces of hair are yielded by each plant, and it is reckoned that about
-four years must elapse before another gathering can be obtained.
-
-The rhizomes and stems of many ferns abound in starch, and have a
-commercial value, either as medicine or food. The soft mucilaginous pith
-of _Cyathea medullaris_, one of the large tree-ferns of New Zealand, was
-formerly eaten by the natives. It is of a reddish colour, and, when
-baked, acquires a somewhat pungent flavour. In New Zealand ferns seem to
-be in some repute for their edible properties, for the large scaly
-rhizomes of _Marattia fraxinea_, and those of another fern, _Pteris
-esculenta_, nearly allied to our common bracken, _P. aquilina_, are also
-eaten by the Maoris. The natives bake them in ashes, peel them with
-their teeth, and eat them with meat, as we do bread; and sometimes pound
-them between stones, in order to extract the nutritious matter, the
-woody part being rejected as useless. In Nepaul, the rhizomes of
-_Nephrolepis tuberosa_ are similarly prepared for food; and in New
-Caledonia the mucilaginous matter of _Cyathea vieillardii_ is obtained
-from incisions made in the stem, or at the base of the fronds. The
-succulent fronds of the little water-fern, _Ceratopteris thalictroides_,
-are boiled and eaten as a vegetable by the poorer classes in the Indian
-Archipelago. The young shoots of the handsome tree-fern, _Angiopteris
-evecta_, are eaten in the Society Islands, and its large rhizome, which
-is in great part composed of mucilage, yields, when dried, a kind of
-flour. In the same islands the young fronds of _Helminthostachys
-limulata_, the "Balabala" of the Fiji Islands, are eaten in times of
-scarcity; and the soft scales covering the _stipes_ of the fronds are
-used by the white settlers for stuffing pillows and cushions in
-preference to feathers, because they do not become heated, and are thus
-more comfortable in a sultry climate. In New South Wales, the thick
-rhizome of _Blechnum cartilagineum_ is much eaten by the natives. It is
-first roasted and then beaten, so as to break away the woody fibre: it
-is said to taste like a waxy potato.
-
-By skilful treatment the inhabitants of Southern China occasionally
-converted the thick root-stock of one of these tree-ferns, "_Dicksonia
-barometz_," into a rough semblance of a quadruped, which quadruped, by a
-foregone conclusion, was supposed to be a lamb. They removed entirely
-the fronds that grew upward from the rhizome, excepting four, and these
-four they trimmed down until only about four inches of each stalk was
-left. The object thus shaped being turned upside down, the root-stock
-represented the body of the animal, and was supported by the four
-inverted stalks of the fronds, as upon four legs. If the specimen had an
-insufficient number of stalks growing from it to make the four legs,
-others were artificially and neatly affixed to it; ears were similarly
-provided, and, if necessary, the trunk was fitted with a head and neck
-made from another root-stock.
-
-So far, well! The identification of the material of which these
-imitations of four-legged animals were fashioned as the rhizome and
-frond-stalks of a tree-fern is complete, and perfectly satisfactory.
-But, having given to these root-stocks of tree-ferns the full benefit of
-an acknowledgment of the economic uses that have been made of them in
-various ways and in different localities, and having frankly stated the
-still accepted theory of their connection with the myth of the
-"Vegetable Lamb of Scythia," I have to express my very decided opinion
-that they and the "lambs" (?) made from them had no more to do with the
-origin of the fable of the "_Barometz_" than the artificial mermaids so
-cleverly made by the Japanese have had to do with the origin of the
-belief in fish-tailed human beings and divinities. In the first place,
-as we shall presently see, these manipulated ferns were not intended by
-those who fashioned them to resemble lambs at all. Secondly, if they had
-been intended to represent the lamb of the fable, they could have been,
-like the Japanese mermaids, only the outcome and illustration of the
-legend--not the objects which first gave rise to it. Neither the one nor
-the other of these counterfeit fabrications appears to have been ever
-common; and neither was certainly manufactured in sufficient numbers,
-nor distributed so abundantly and completely over the habitable globe,
-as to have laid the foundation of a myth which in the one case was
-universally believed,[24] and in the other attracted attention all over
-Europe and Western Asia, and also in Egypt. Very few of the Japanese
-artificial mermaids have been seen in this country, though they have
-been eagerly sought for, and the fern-"lambs" that have been brought to
-England may be counted on one's fingers.[25]
-
-  [24] See the Chapter on "Mermaids" by the Author in 'Sea Fables
-  Explained,' one of the Handbooks issued by the Authorities of the
-  Great International Fisheries Exhibition of 1883. London. Clowes and
-  Sons, Limited.
-
-  [25] I know of only four--(though, of course, there may be others, of
-  which I shall be glad to receive information)--namely, one in the
-  Botanical department of the British Museum; another in the Museum of
-  the Royal College of Surgeons; the specimen sent from India by Mr.
-  Buckley to the Royal Society in 1698; and that described by Dr. Breyn
-  in 1725. Of the origin of the first-mentioned nothing is known, though
-  it is apparently the one figured by John and Andrew Rymsdyk, in their
-  '_Museum Britannicum_' (1778, plate xv.), as one of the curious
-  objects in the British Museum. Of the second we only know that it was
-  presented to the College of Surgeons by Mr. Quekett--the habitat of
-  the fern of which it is composed being erroneously given in the
-  Catalogue (No. 177 of "Plants and Invertebrates") as "Plains of
-  Tartary," the supposed home of the mythical lamb, but where the fern
-  in question never grew. That sent to England by Mr. Buckley, and which
-  was the subject of Sir Hans Sloane's paper in 1698, seems to have been
-  lost or mislaid. Whether it remained in the possession of the Royal
-  Society, or was placed by Sir Hans Sloane in his own collection, it
-  ought to be in the British Museum. But nothing is known of it there,
-  nor of the cabinet of surgical instruments and appliances in which it
-  arrived. I have endeavoured to trace it; but although, as usual, I
-  have met with every kind assistance and courtesy from the heads of
-  departments, I have been unsuccessful.
-
-  Sir Hans Sloane, who died in 1753, bequeathed his valuable collection
-  and library to the nation on the condition that L20,000 should be paid
-  to his executors for the benefit of his daughters. The Government
-  raised the necessary funds by a guinea lottery, and sufficient money
-  was thus obtained to purchase also (for L10,500) Montague House, in
-  Bloomsbury, which then became the British Museum. When the Royal
-  Society removed from their old premises, in Crane Court, to Somerset
-  House in 1780 they also gave the contents of their cabinets to the
-  National Collection, but many of these, and amongst them this
-  fern-root animal, cannot be found.
-
-  Dr. Breyn, of Dantzic, no doubt retained the specimen which he
-  described, and it is probably in some continental collection.
-
-  I know, therefore, of only two of these so-called "lambs" extant in
-  this country--one in the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, and
-  the other in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. No history
-  of either of these has been preserved.
-
-Further, it is a fact which seems to have been strangely overlooked,
-that these tree-ferns, with the creeping root-stocks, do not grow in
-Tartary. The particular species of _Dicksonia_ from which the
-doll-"lambs" were made is a native of Southern China, Assam, and the
-Malayan peninsula and islands.[26] And we have conclusive evidence, in
-addition to the report made by Mr. Buckley to the Royal Society (p. 27),
-that these playthings themselves were of Chinese workmanship.
-
-  [26] '_Synopsis Filicum_,' by Sir W. J. Hooker and J. G. Baker, F.L.S.
-  1863. Art. "Dicksonia barometz."
-
-Juan de Loureiro, an accomplished Portuguese botanist and Fellow of the
-Royal Society of Lisbon, who lived and laboured as a Catholic missionary
-for more than thirty years in Cochin China, and, afterwards, for three
-years in China, thus writes[27]:--
-
-  [27] _Flora Cochinchinensis_, tom. i. p. 675. Lisbon. 1790.
-
-"The _Polypodium borametz_ grows in hilly woods in China and Cochin
-China. Many authors have written of the Scythian Lamb, or Borametz--most
-of them fabulously. Ours is not a fruit, but a root, which is easily
-shaped by the help of a little art into the form of _a small rufous dog,
-by which name, and not by that of a 'lamb,' it is called by the
-Chinese_."
-
-Loureiro describes the cutting off the stalks to form the legs, the
-fixing on of smaller ones as ears, and other particulars of the rude
-manufacture of these fern-root dogs, as witnessed by himself. The common
-name of these toys in China--"Cau-tich," and in Cochin China,
-"Kew-tsie," both represent a "tan-coloured dog."
-
-It must also be borne in mind that the lamb-plant was represented as
-springing from a seed like that of a melon, but rounder, and that the
-natives of the country where it grew planted these seeds. It was
-therefore a cultivated plant. The lamb, it was also stated, was
-contained within the fruit or seed-capsule of the plant; and when this
-fruit, or seed-pod, was ripe it burst open, and the little lamb within
-it was disclosed. The wool of this lamb was described by various writers
-as being "very white," "as white as snow," whereas these root-stocks of
-ferns bear no resemblance to a lamb in their natural condition; and when
-they have been deftly trimmed into shape the hairs or scales upon them
-are tawny orange, matching better with the "tan" markings of a dog,
-which they were intended to represent, than with the soft, white fleece
-of a young lamb.
-
-Therefore, even if I had no better explanation to offer, I should be led
-to the conclusion that the identification of these _tawny_ toy-_dogs_,
-made in _China_ from the _root_ of a _wild_ fern, the spores of which
-are _as small as dust_, with the "Vegetable _Lambs_" of _Scythia_, whose
-_white_ fleeces were found within the ripe and opening _fruit_ of a
-_cultivated_ plant, raised from _a large seed_, was obviously erroneous,
-and that the origin of the rumour must be sought for elsewhere.
-
-The plant that set all Europe talking of the lambs that grew in fruits
-and on stalks of plants somewhere in Scythia was one of far higher
-importance and value to mankind than the childish knick-knacks made for
-amusement out of the creeping root-stocks of ferns. These and the
-curly-fleeced progeny of the poor ewes of Astrachan were lambs that
-crossed the track of the first, lost lamb, and led those searching for
-it into the mistake of following their respective trails, whilst the
-original "Scythian Lamb" escaped from sight.
-
-Tracing the growth and transition of this story of the lamb-plant from a
-truthful rumour of a curious fact into a detailed history of an absurd
-fiction, I have no doubt whatever that it originated in early
-descriptions of the cotton plant, and the introduction of cotton from
-India into Western Asia and the adjoining parts of Eastern Europe.
-
-Herodotus, writing (B.C. 445) of the usages of the people of India, says
-(lib. iii. cap. 106) of this cotton:--"Certain trees bear for their
-fruit fleeces surpassing those of sheep in beauty and excellence, and
-the natives clothe themselves in cloths made therefrom."
-
-In the 47th chapter of the same book, Herodotus describes a corselet
-sent by Aahmes (or Amasis) II., King of Egypt, to Sparta as having been
-"ornamented with gold and _fleeces from the trees_"--padded with cotton,
-in fact.
-
-Ctesias, also, who was the contemporary of Herodotus, and was made
-prisoner, and kept by the King of Persia as his court physician for
-seventeen years, was acquainted with the use of a kind of wool, the
-produce of trees, for spinning and weaving amongst the natives of India,
-for he mentions in his '_Indica_' a fragment quoted by Photius,
-"tree-garments"; and that he thus referred to clothing made from these
-tree-fleeces we have the testimony of Varro:--"Ctesias says that there
-are in India _trees that bear wool_."
-
-Nearchus, the admiral of Alexander the Great, reported that "there were
-in India trees bearing, as it were, flocks or bunches of wool, and that
-the natives made of this wool garments of surpassing whiteness, or else
-their black complexions made the material appear whiter than any other."
-
-Aristobulus, another of Alexander's generals, made mention in his
-journal of the cotton plant, under the name of "the wool-bearing tree,"
-and stated that "it bore a capsule that contained seeds which were taken
-out, and that which remained was carded like wool."
-
-Strabo, who records this (lib. xv. cap. 21), referring to it in another
-paragraph, writes:--"Nearchus says that their (the natives') fine
-clothing was made from this wool, and that the Macedonians used it for
-mattresses and the stuffing of their saddles."[28]
-
-  [28] Unfortunately the Journal and Narrative of Nearchus, written B.C.
-  325-324, are lost, as are also those of Aristobulus, who seems to have
-  been a very accurate observer; and we are indebted to Strabo and
-  Arrian for the summaries and extracts from them that we possess.
-  Strabo's '_Geographia_' was completed A.D. 21, about three years
-  before his death. Fabius Arrianus wrote his '_Historia Indica_,' and
-  '_Periplus Maris Erythraei_,' which contain valuable particulars of
-  Alexander's expedition, about A.D. 131-135.
-
-Theophrastus, the disciple of Aristotle, writing about B.C. 306,
-says[29]:--
-
-  [29] '_De Historia Plantarum_,' lib. iv. cap. 4.
-
-"The trees from which the Indians make their clothes have leaves like
-those of the black mulberry, but the whole plant resembles the dog-rose.
-They are planted in rows on the plains, so as to look like vines at a
-distance."
-
-In another passage of the same book (cap. 9) he writes:--
-
-"In the Island of Tylos, which is in the Arabian Gulf,[30] the
-wool-bearing trees, which grow there abundantly, have leaves like the
-vine, but smaller. They bear no fruit, but the pod containing the wool
-is about the size of a spring apple ("[Greek: melon]"), whilst it is
-unripe and closed, but when it is ripe it opens: the wool is then
-gathered from it, and woven into cloths of various qualities--some
-inferior, but others of great value."
-
-  [30] Theophrastus is in error in placing Tylos in the Arabian Gulf
-  (which we now call the Red Sea); it was in the Persian Gulf, and is
-  now known as Bahrsin. The ancients, however, gave to the whole of the
-  sea between the east coast of Africa, north of Mogador, and the west
-  shores of India the name of the "Erythraean Sea," from King Erythros,
-  of whom nothing more is known than the name, which, in Greek,
-  signifies "red." From this casual meaning of the word it came to be
-  believed that the water of this sea differed in colour from that of
-  others, and that it was consequently more difficult to navigate.
-
-This description by Theophrastus is remarkably correct as applied to the
-herbaceous variety of the cotton-plant, from which the chief supply of
-cotton for spinning and weaving into cloth has always been obtained. In
-its mode of growth--branched, spreading, and flexible--it may well be
-likened to the dog-rose; and its palmate leaves bear a close resemblance
-to those of the black mulberry, which differ little from the leaves of
-some varieties of the vine. The remark relative to the mode of
-cultivation is also exactly applicable to the cotton-plant, which is set
-in rows about four feet asunder, and the plants about two feet apart, so
-that a field of it resembles a vineyard when seen from a distance.
-
-Pomponius Mela, the author next in order of time, also writes in his
-account of India[31] of the "trees that produce wool used by the natives
-for clothing."
-
-  [31] _De Situ Orbis_, lib. iii. cap. 7.
-
-Then comes Pliny, who, incompetent and worthless as a naturalist, though
-admirable as a writer, obscured this subject, as he did many others. In
-his 'Natural History'[32] he mentions cotton in four different
-paragraphs, and in every one of them inaccurately. He confuses cotton
-with flax, and the fabrics woven of it with linen, and treats of silk as
-a downy substance scraped from the leaves of trees. And, in
-transcribing, or translating, the passage from Theophrastus relating to
-the "wool-bearing trees," he distorts the author's words, and states
-that "these trees bear _gourds_ the size of a quince, which burst when
-ripe, and display balls of wool out of which the inhabitants make cloths
-like valuable linen." Pliny therefore seems to have been the author of
-the "gourd" portion of the story which afterwards obtained currency in
-Western Europe.
-
-  [32] '_Naturalis Historia_,' A.D. 77.
-
-I shall quote one more ancient mention of the "fleece-bearing plant,"
-because the author of it gives a more exact description than any
-previous writer of that portion of it from which the wool is taken.
-
-Julius Pollux, who wrote about a hundred years later than Pliny, says in
-his 'Onomasticon':--
-
-"There are also _Byssina_ and _Byssus_, a kind of flax. But among the
-Indians a sort of wool is obtained from a tree. The cloth made from this
-wool may be compared with linen, except that it is thicker. The tree
-produces a fruit most nearly resembling a walnut, but three-cleft. After
-the outer covering, which is like a walnut, has divided and become dry,
-the substance resembling wool is extracted, and is used in the
-manufacture of cloth."
-
-This remark, of the pericarp of the cotton-pod, in some species of
-_Gossypium_, being three-cleft, is in accordance with fact, and is not
-noticed by any previous writer.
-
-In tracing the development of these early and truthful accounts of the
-cotton-plant into the complete fable of the compound plant-animal, the
-"Vegetable Lamb of Scythia," we shall find it, as in the case of some
-other myths of the Middle Ages, attributable to two principal causes:--
-
-1. The misinterpretation of ambiguous or figurative language; 2. The
-similarity of appearance of two actually different and incongruous
-objects.
-
-It is a curious fact, which I believe has not hitherto been noticed in
-connection with this subject, that the Greek word "[Greek melon]"
-(melon), very fitly used by Theophrastus in the passage quoted (p. 48)
-to describe the form and appearance of the unripe cotton-pod, may be
-equally correctly translated "a fruit," "an apple," or "a sheep": the
-adjective "[Greek: hearinon]," which is also used, means "vernal";
-therefore the phrase may be regarded as signifying either that the
-vegetable wool was taken from a "spring apple" growing upon a tree, or
-from a "spring-sheep" (or lamb) growing upon a tree. Although I believe
-that the mistake originated, as I shall presently explain, in the actual
-and substantial resemblance between cotton wool and lamb's wool, rather
-than in the verbal identity of an appellative noun, it is not improbable
-that this ambiguous phrase of convertible interpretation may, in some
-measure, have contributed to convey, many centuries later, to readers of
-a dead language who knew nothing of the plant referred to, an erroneous
-idea of the nature of "the fleeces that grew on trees." It would seem so
-much more likely that a soft fleece of white wool should grow upon a
-young lamb yeaned in spring-time than inside a fruit like an apple in
-the partly-formed and unripe condition in which it is found in spring,
-that students in the Middle Ages, as they pondered doubtfully over this
-word of double meaning, would probably prefer the first interpretation,
-and translate the passage of Theophrastus as a statement that the wool
-was taken from a "spring-sheep," or lamb, growing upon a tree which bore
-no other fruit. It is also probable that this use of the Greek word
-"_melon_" gave rise to the report in later times that the seed of the
-plant which bore the "Vegetable Lamb" was like that of a melon or gourd.
-
-We may next take into account the prevalence amongst many tribes and
-nations in both hemispheres of the custom of using figurative language
-in relation to the objects and occurrences of their daily life.
-
-A very striking and remarkable proof is given us by Herodotus that the
-Scythians of the North-West, who carried both the cotton and the rumour
-of the lamb-plant into Muscovy, were in the habit of speaking thus
-figuratively and metaphorically. He writes (lib. iv. cap. 2):--
-
-"The part beyond the north, the Scythians say, can neither be seen nor
-passed through, by reason of the feathers shed there; for the earth and
-air are full of feathers, and it is these which interrupt the view."
-
-Further on (lib. iv. cap. 31) he also observes:--
-
-"With respect to the feathers with which the Scythians say the air is
-filled, and on account of which it is not possible either to see further
-upon the continent, or to pass through it, I entertain the following
-opinion. In the upper parts of this country it continually snows--less
-in summer than in winter, as is reasonable. Now, whoever has seen snow
-falling thick near him will know what I mean; for snow is like feathers,
-and on account of the winter being so severe the northern parts of this
-country are uninhabited. I think, then, that the Scythians and their
-neighbours call the snow feathers, comparing them together."
-
-Herodotus was, of course, right in this interpretation.
-
-Who can doubt that the people who would thus realistically describe snow
-as feathers would probably describe the white wool of the cotton-pod as
-"tree-lamb's-wool," the produce of a "lamb-plant," or "plant-lamb"?
-
-The growth and development of the story of "the Scythian Lamb" from the
-similarity of appearance of two really different objects may be best
-explained by comparing it with another Natural-history myth, which ran
-curiously parallel with it. I allude to the fable that Sir John
-Mandeville tells us he related to his Tartar acquaintances, viz. that of
-the "_Barnacle Geese_"--which has never been surpassed as a specimen of
-ignorant credulity and persistent error.
-
-From the twelfth to the end of the seventeenth century it was implicitly
-and almost universally believed that in the Western Islands of Scotland
-certain geese, of which the nesting-places were never found, instead of
-being hatched from eggs, like other birds, were bred from "shell-fish"
-which grew on trees. Upon the shores where these geese abounded, pieces
-of timber and old trunks of trees covered with barnacles were often seen
-which had been stranded by the sea. From between the partly opened
-shells of the barnacles protruded their plumose cirrhi, which in some
-degree resemble the feathers of a bird. Hence arose the belief that they
-contained real birds. The fishermen persuaded themselves that these
-birds within the shells were the geese whose origin they had been
-previously unable to discover, and that they were thus bred, instead of
-being hatched, like other birds, from eggs. As the tale spread to a
-distance, it gained by repetition, like the story of "The Three Black
-Crows" amusingly told by Dr. John Byrom.[33] The trees found upon the
-shore were soon reported to be trees growing on the shore; that which
-grew on trees people soon asserted to be the fruit of trees; and thus,
-from step to step, the story increased in wonder and obtained credit. It
-was discussed during many centuries by philosophers and men of learning,
-who, one after another, accepted the evidence in its favour, until Sir
-Robert Moray, F.R.S., in 1678, reported to the Royal Society that he had
-examined these barnacles, and that in every shell that he had opened he
-had "found a little bird--the little bill, like that of a goose; the
-eyes marked; the head, neck, breast, wings, tail, and feet formed, the
-feathers everywhere perfectly shaped and blackish-coloured, and the feet
-like those of other water-fowl." This nonsense was published in the
-'Philosophical Transactions' (No. 137, January and February, 1678) under
-the auspices of the highest representatives of science in this country.
-The old botanist Gerard had previously (in 1597) had the audacity to
-assert that he had witnessed the transformation of the "shell-fish" into
-geese.[34]
-
-  [33] See Appendix G.
-
-  [34] See 'Sea Fables Explained,' by the Author, 2nd edition, p. 114.
-  Clowes and Sons, Limited.
-
-In like manner the "wool-bearing plant" of Ctesias, Nearchus,
-Aristobulus, and Theophrastus, the plant of which Herodotus wrote that
-"it bore as its fruit fleeces which surpassed those of lambs in beauty
-and excellence," was soon reported to be "a plant bearing fruit within
-which was a little lamb having a fleece of surpassing beauty and
-excellence." As it was evident that a living lamb must take food, the
-"lytylle best" was, in the next version, kindly placed upon a stalk, and
-so balanced thereon as to be able to bend downward, and browze upon the
-surrounding herbage. Of course the lamb, if it fed on grass, must have
-digestive and other organs, like those of lambs ordinarily begotten, so
-these were liberally bestowed upon it with as much particularity as that
-exercised by Sir Robert Moray in enumerating the "parts and features"
-of the "little tree-bird."[35] The transformation of the wondrous
-"plant-animal" from "a little lamb with a white fleece disclosed by the
-bursting of a ripe seed-pod growing on a stalk" into "a lamb growing on
-a stalk attached to its navel, and browzing on the herbage within its
-reach," vastly increased the difficulty of identifying it. Like the
-barnacle geese, it was discussed by philosophers and sought for by
-travellers; but its features had been distorted beyond recognition, and,
-instead of endeavouring to find its original portrait in the pages of
-old historians and geographers, enquirers looked for fresh information
-concerning it in the misleading tales of successive travellers. At last,
-as we have seen, another "vegetable lamb" crossed the trail of the
-original lost one, in the shape of the two Chinese toy-dogs laid before
-the Royal Society by Sir Hans Sloane and Dr. Breyn. That distinguished
-body of savants unfortunately accorded their recognition to the wrongful
-claimant, and ever since then botanists and antiquarians have regarded
-the problem as solved, and have been satisfied that in these few rude
-models of "tan-coloured dogs" they have found the true and original
-"snow-white" "Vegetable Lamb of Scythia."
-
-  [35] The figures of the ancient partly human, partly piscine deities,
-  from which originated the belief in mermaids, similarly passed through
-  various mutations. The first idea was that of a man coming out of the
-  mouth of a fish. Subsequently, the form was that of a man clad in the
-  skin of a fish--wearing it as a mantle--the head of the fish covering
-  that of the man, like a cap or helmet. And so on, till a being was
-  developed the upper half of whose body was human, and the lower half,
-  from the waist downwards, that of a fish.
-
-The contented acceptance by botanists and other representatives of
-science, down to the present day, of three or four trumpery toys
-artificially and roughly fashioned by the Chinese from the rhizomes of
-a fern which does not grow in Tartary or Scythia, and brought to Europe
-by travellers at rare intervals, as sufficient to account for the origin
-of a rumour which spread from Asia all over Europe and attracted the
-attention of learned men of all countries for many centuries, is not the
-least remarkable circumstance in the history of the legend of the
-"Scythian Lamb."
-
-Well might the old historians consider worthy of record the reports they
-had heard of the existence of the "wool-bearing tree," for, as Dr. Ure
-has remarked,[36] "it would be universally regarded as a miracle of
-vegetation did not familiarity blunt the moral feelings of mankind. This
-class of plants, largely distributed over the torrid zone, affords to
-the inhabitants a spontaneous and inexhaustible supply of the clothing
-material best adapted to screen their swarthy bodies from the scorching
-sun, and to favour the cooling influence of the breeze, as well as
-cutaneous exhalation. While the tropical heats change the soft wool of
-the sheep into a harsh, scanty hair, unfit for clothing purposes, they
-cherish and ripen the vegetable wool, with its more slender and porous
-fibres, admirably suited for clothing in a hot climate, as the grosser
-and warmer animal fibres are in a cold one. No sooner does the cotton
-pod arrive at maturity than its swollen capsules burst with an elastic
-force, in gaping segments, in order, as it were, to display to the most
-careless eye their white fleecy treasure, and to invite the hand of the
-observer to pluck it from the seeds, and to work it up into a light and
-beautiful robe. Thus held forth from the extremity of every bough, by
-its resemblance to sheep's wool it could not fail to attract attention."
-
-  [36] 'The Cotton Manufacture of Great Britain,' p. 71.
-
-Such keen observers as the ancient conquerors of India would have been
-sure to notice with surprise and interest the wonderful vegetable
-product which could be compared to nothing so aptly as to the white,
-soft wool of a little lamb, to appreciate its value and usefulness, and
-to admire the fabrics manufactured from it. And, as these fabrics
-gradually found their way northward from India by the great caravan
-routes, either by Samarcand, or by the passes of the Hindu Kush, by
-Bokhara and Khiva, through Turkestan and Tartary into Russia, in one
-direction, and by Egypt to the countries on the Mediterranean in
-another, the sensation they would cause is not difficult to realise. We
-can imagine how the newly-arrived trader, as he displayed his goods,
-would be eagerly questioned by intending purchasers of the novel, soft,
-white or coloured cloths, so well suited to their requirements, as to
-the nature of the raw material of which they had been woven. We can
-picture to ourselves their astonishment when he explained to them that
-the delicate, white, flossy fibres from which his fabrics were made, of
-which he, perhaps, showed them a sample, and which looked so like lamb's
-wool, was the produce of a plant, the fruit of which burst open when it
-became ripe, and exposed to view the white wool within it. And we can
-easily understand how the fame of this spread, and was carried into
-distant lands, and how this "vegetable lamb's wool" was discussed and
-talked about in countries where it, and the yarn spun from it, and the
-cloths woven from it, had not yet penetrated.
-
-Now, let us complete our identification of the cotton-pod of India as
-"the Vegetable Lamb" of the fable by showing its right to the title of
-"the _Scythian_ Lamb."
-
-There is probably no race of men, or rather aggregate of races,
-mentioned prominently in history, of whom, and of whose country so
-little has been definitely known as of the ancient Scythians. They have
-been generally and vaguely, and, to a certain extent, correctly,
-regarded as represented in modern times by the numerous hordes of
-Tartars inhabiting the lands north of the mountains of the Caucasus, and
-part of central and northern Asia. So exclusively have they been
-identified with these tribes that the terms Tartary and Scythia have
-been looked upon as synonymous, and thus "the Scythian Lamb" has been
-called also the "Tartarian Lamb," or "the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary."
-
-Under the name of "Scythia" was included (as may be seen on any good
-classical map) a vast territory, partly in Europe and partly in Asia,
-extending from the 25th to the 116th degree of East longitude. The
-European portion of it was comparatively a small province, known as
-"Scythia Parva," and comprised those districts of Silistria and
-Bessarabia bordering the western shores of the Black Sea, south of the
-mouths of the Danube. Scythia in Asia, which was separated from Scythia
-Parva by the two Sarmatias, included the whole of Turkestan, Thibet,
-Mongolia, and Siberia. It was bounded on the West by the Ural Mountains
-and river, and extended northward through then unknown regions to the
-Arctic Circle, and southward to the Himalayas. But still further south,
-beyond the western Himalayas--the Hindu-Kush--was another part of
-Scythia, known as "Indo-Scythia." This stretched southward to the
-Erythrean Sea (the Arabian Sea), and was that part of India now called
-Scinde and the Punjab. Through it flowed the Indus and the Hydaspes, and
-it was on the banks of the latter river, at Bucephalia (either the
-present Jhelum, or Jubalpore, eighteen miles lower), that Alexander's
-admiral collected the flotilla which he conducted down the Hydaspes to
-its confluence with the Indus, and along the whole course of that great
-river, and made his way by its lower mouth into the open water of the
-Arabian Sea. Then and there it was--from the time of their arrival in
-the country, during the war with Pontus and other Indian princes, and on
-their ten months' voyage homeward--that Alexander and his commodore
-Nearchus saw the native population of Indo-Scythia "clad in garments the
-material of which was whiter than any other, or at any rate appeared so
-in contrast with their wearers' swarthy skin," and which were "made of
-the wool like that of lambs, which grew in tufts and bunches upon
-trees."
-
-Although more than two thousand years have passed since then, Nearchus's
-description of this costume--"a shirt, or tunic, reaching to the middle
-of the leg, a sheet folded about the shoulders, and a turban rolled
-round the head"--would be almost equally accurate at the present day.
-Its wearers may be congratulated that fashion has left unchanged and
-unspoiled an apparel so serviceable and well-suited to the climate of
-the country and the habits of its people!
-
-As the "fleeces of vegetable wool, softer and whiter than that of the
-lamb," came from Indo-Scythia, the supposed plant-animal that bore them
-was first called "the Scythian Lamb."
-
-As time passed on, the name of Scythia in Asia became merged in that of
-Tartary. From the time that the Mahometans became masters of Egypt and
-Constantinople, as no Christian was allowed to pass through their
-dominion to the East, intercourse with India by the two most direct
-roads ceased entirely. Cotton goods and other merchandise from India
-were therefore conveyed by the trading caravans before mentioned. The
-depot to which they were generally forwarded was Samarcand, as was
-correctly related to Guillaume Postel by Michel, the Arabic interpreter
-(p. 13). There they met the great caravan travelling from the East into
-Russia, and, on the journey, passed through part of Scythia in Asia. In
-each district the caravan was joined by hosts of Tartar traders carrying
-with them the wool of their sheep, the hair of their goats, and the
-skins of both, the soft, curly skins of their lambs, and droves of hardy
-colts, the produce of their mares, whose milk was, and still is, to them
-as important an article of diet as that of cows is to ourselves. As the
-Tartar merchants brought with the fleeces of their sheep, goats, and
-lambs the fleeces also of "the fine white wool that grew on trees" and
-the piece-goods made from it, "the vegetable lamb" from which it was
-supposed to have been sheared became also in this manner identified with
-Tartary, in the same way as were Indian spices with "Araby," through
-which they sometimes passed in transit, but where they never grew. It
-thus became known as "the wool of the Tartarian Lamb," and travellers
-whose curiosity concerning the far-famed "zoophyte" was subsequently
-aroused sought for it in the dominions of the "Great Cham." But, just as
-when AEneas Sylvius Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius II., sought in
-Scotland for the "goose-bearing tree," which he eagerly desired to see,
-upon being told that it grew much further north, complained that
-"miracles will always flee farther and farther away"; so when any
-painstaking traveller in Tartary endeavoured to investigate the subject
-of the strange "plant-animal," he was sure to learn (unless he allowed
-himself to be cunningly hoaxed by the skin of a natural lamb, or the
-fruit of another plant) that the object of his search was non-existent
-in its reputed birthplace, and that he must look for it elsewhere.
-
-Thus the story of the "Scythian" or "Tartarian Lamb" grew, and was
-exaggerated and distorted, until all traces of its origin were so
-obliterated that even men of thought and learning have been unable to
-recognise in the misleading descriptions given of it the plant which,
-excepting corn, is, perhaps, the most valuable to mankind. For, as I
-have said, it seems to me to be clear and indubitable that the fruit
-which burst when ripe and disclosed within it "a little lamb" was the
-cotton pod, and that the soft, white, delicate fleece of "the Vegetable
-Lamb of Scythia" was that which we still call "Cotton Wool."
-
-[Illustration: FIG. 7.--THE REAL "VEGETABLE LAMB"--A COTTON POD.
-
-(_Gossypium herbaceum._)]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II.
-
-THE HISTORY OF COTTON AND ITS INTRODUCTION INTO EUROPE.
-
-
-In the preceding pages I have referred to the introduction of cotton
-into the countries north and west of the Indus in so far only as the
-expressions of old writers relating to it have seemed to afford a clue
-to the origin of the fable of "the Scythian Lamb." But I venture to
-think that a brief account of its botanical affinities, and of its
-spread and distribution amongst various nations, may form an appropriate
-and acceptable sequel to the story of the wild rumours that preceded by
-many centuries its arrival in Western Europe.
-
-The cotton plant, _Gossypium_, is one of the _Malvaceae_--allied to the
-mallow. There are several varieties of it, but only three principal
-distinctions require notice--namely, the herbaceous, the tree, and the
-shrub species. The first and most useful, _Gossypium herbaceum_, is an
-annual plant, cultivated in the United States, India, China, and other
-countries. It grows to a height of from eighteen to twenty inches, and
-has leaves, which being somewhat lobed, of a bright dark green colour,
-and marked with brownish veins, were not inaptly compared by
-Theophrastus with those of the black mulberry and the vine. Its blossoms
-expand into a pale yellow flower, and when this falls off a
-three-celled, triangular capsular pod appears. The pod increases to the
-size of a large cob-nut or small medlar, and becomes brown as the woolly
-fruit ripens. The expansion of the wool then causes the pod to burst,
-and it discloses a ball of snow-white (in some species, yellowish) down
-consisting of three locks--one in each cell--enclosing and firmly
-adhering to the seeds. As the pods ripen the cotton is gathered by hand,
-and is exposed to the sun till it is perfectly dry; the seeds are then
-separated from it, and it is packed into bales for future use or
-exportation. In the United States it is planted in rows, four feet
-asunder, and the seeds are set in holes eighteen inches apart.
-
-The shrub cotton grows in almost every country where the annual
-herbaceous cotton is found. Its duration varies according to the
-climate. In some places, as in the West Indies, it is biennial or
-triennial; in others, as in India, Egypt, &c., it lasts from six to ten
-years; in the hottest climates it is perennial; and in the cooler
-countries it becomes an annual.
-
-The tree-cotton, _Gossypium arboreum_, grows in India, Egypt, China, the
-interior and western coast of Africa, and in some parts of America. As
-the tree only attains to a height of from twelve to twenty feet, it is
-difficult to distinguish the tree cotton and the shrub cotton when
-referred to by travellers.
-
-The cotton plant, in all its varieties, requires a sandy soil. It
-flourishes on the rocky hills of Hindostan, Africa, and the West Indies,
-and will grow where the soil is too poor to produce any other valuable
-crop.
-
-Cotton has always been regarded as indigenous to India, and as the
-characteristic clothing material of that country, as flax is of Egypt,
-silk of China, and the wool of sheep and goats of Northern Asia.
-
-The uncertain nature of Hindoo chronology prevents our even guessing at
-the period when cotton was first spun and woven in India; but there is
-little doubt that it was so used from the earliest ages of Hindoo
-civilization. As Dr. Robertson remarks, in his 'Historical Disquisition
-on British India'--"Whoever attempts to trace the operations of men in
-remote times, and to mark the various steps of their progress in any
-line of exertion, will soon have the mortification to find that the
-period of authentic history is extremely limited, and if we push our
-enquiries beyond the period when written history commences we enter upon
-the region of conjecture, of fable, and of uncertainty."
-
-The earliest mention of cotton with which we are acquainted is found,
-according to Dr. Royle,[37] in the first book of the Rig Veda, Hymn 105,
-verse 8, which is supposed to have been composed fifteen centuries
-before the Christian era. It is, however, a mere allusion to "threads in
-the loom," and although it probably does refer to cotton, the evidence
-of this is only circumstantial. But in 'The Sacred Institutes of Manu,'
-which date from 800 B.C., cotton is referred to so repeatedly as to
-imply that it was in common use at that time in India. Dr. Royle says,
-on the authority of Professor Wilson, that cotton and cotton-cloth are
-mentioned in that book by the Sanscrit names "_Kurpasa_" and
-"_Karpasum_," and cotton-seeds as "_Kurpas-asthi_." The common Bengali
-name "Kupas," indicating cotton with the seed, which is still in general
-use all over India, and may even be occasionally heard in Lancashire,
-is, no doubt, derived from the Sanscrit, from which also comes the Latin
-"_carbasus_."
-
-  [37] 'On the Culture and Commerce of Cotton in India and elsewhere,'
-  by J. Forbes Royle, M.D., F.R.S. London. 1851.
-
-It is evident that the manufacture of cotton in India must date from a
-very remote period indeed, for long before the time of Herodotus the
-processes of weaving and dyeing it had attained to a degree of
-excellence which indicates considerable previous experience; and a large
-export trade in white and coloured cotton fabrics had even then been
-established.
-
-From India manufactured cotton seems to have reached Persia in very
-early times, for the word "Karpas" occurs in the book of Esther (chap.
-i. v. 6), in the description of the decorations of the palace of Shushan
-during the right royal festivities given there by King Ahasuerus, B.C.
-519. In the verse referred to we are told that there were "white, green,
-and blue hangings." The word corresponding with "green" in the Hebrew is
-"_Karpas_," in the Septuagint and Vulgate, _carbasinus_, and should be
-rendered "cotton-cloth"; so that the hangings of the palace of Ahasuerus
-were of white and blue striped cotton, such as may be seen throughout
-India at the present day. Bishop Heber describes the Hall of Audience of
-the Emperor of Delhi, as having these striped curtains hanging in
-festoons about it.
-
-Mattrasses, also, of this striped material, stuffed and padded with
-coarse cotton, are still used in India as a substitute for doors and
-window-shutters, to keep out the heat, and are known as "purdahs."
-Aristobulus reported that Susiana had when he was there "an atmosphere
-so glowing and scorching that lizards and serpents could not cross the
-streets of the city at noon quickly enough to prevent their being burned
-to death mid-way by the heat"; that "barley spread out in the sun was
-roasted, as in an oven, and hopped about" (like parched peas); and that
-"the inhabitants laid earth to the depth of three and a half feet on the
-roofs of their houses to exclude the suffocating heat," so that it is
-not improbable that these blue and white striped "purdahs" were used in
-the palace of Shushan in the time of Ahasuerus.
-
-Strabo frequently mentions this palace of Shushan, or Susa, which was in
-the province of Susis, or Susiana, at the head of the Persian Gulf. He
-tells us that when Alexander the Great became master of Persia he
-transferred to this residence of the Persian Monarchs everything that
-was precious in the land, although the palace was already almost filled
-with treasures and costly materials. Strabo has further been quoted as
-mentioning that cotton grew in Susiana and was there manufactured into
-cloths, but although I have searched his chapters many times I can find
-no such statement. It is most probable, however, that before his time
-cotton did grow and was manufactured in Susiana, and that it was first
-introduced by the Macedonians. They certainly brought into culture there
-before the time of Strabo another valuable plant: for we have the
-distinct statement of the latter that "the vine did not grow in Susiana
-before the Macedonians planted it both there and at Babylon."
-
-Amidst the hurry of war and the rage for conquest Alexander always kept
-in view the future pacification of an invaded country; its products,
-therefore, were habitually ascertained and carefully noted, with a view
-to the increase of revenue and the development of commerce. But, beyond
-this, the great Macedonian conqueror, wherever he went, employed a
-numerous corps of scouts, and searchers, and men of science, to collect
-specimens of the curious animals, plants, and minerals to be found on
-the march. These he sent home from time to time to his great preceptor
-Aristotle, who was thus assisted to produce a work on Natural History
-which, for general accuracy of description and extent of knowledge, is
-a wonderful monument of scientific observation.
-
-When by the refusal of his soldiers to proceed further than the banks of
-the Hyphasis (the modern Beyah), Alexander found himself obliged to
-yield to their wish to be led back to Persia, he determined to sail down
-the Indus to the ocean, and from its mouth to proceed by the Erythrean
-Sea to the Persian Gulf, that a communication by sea might be opened
-with India. His intention was that the valuable commodities of that
-country should thus be conveyed through the Persian Gulf to the interior
-parts of his Asiatic dominions, and that by the Arabian Gulf they should
-be carried to Alexandria (the site of which he had most judiciously
-selected), and thence distributed to the rest of the world.
-
-With this object in view, he ordered a numerous fleet of boats and
-river-craft to be built and collected on the banks of the Hydaspes, at
-Bucephalia (either the modern Jhelum, or Jubalpore, some eighteen miles
-lower down the stream), and, when nearly two thousand vessels of various
-shape and size had been got together, he commenced his voyage down the
-Hydaspes to the Indus. The conduct of the flotilla was committed to
-Nearchus, an officer worthy of that important trust, though Alexander
-himself accompanied him in his navigation down the river. The army
-numbered a hundred and twenty thousand men and two hundred elephants.
-One third of the troops were embarked on the boats, whilst the
-remainder, marching in two columns, one on the right, and the other on
-the left side of the river, accompanied them in their progress. Retarded
-by various military operations on land, as well as by the slow advance
-of such a fleet as he conducted, Alexander did not reach the sea until
-more than nine months after the commencement of his journey. Having
-safely accomplished this arduous undertaking, he led the main body of
-his army back to Persia by land. The command of the fleet, with a
-considerable body of troops on board of it, remained with Nearchus, who,
-after a coasting voyage of seven months, brought it safely up the
-Persian Gulf into the Euphrates.
-
-Alexander's expedition into India was no less an intelligent exploration
-than a successful invasion, and the western world is more indebted than
-is generally understood to the original genius, conspicuous foresight,
-political wisdom, and indefatigable exertions of that remarkable man. It
-was from the memoirs of his officers that Europe derived its first
-authentic information concerning the climate, soil, inhabitants and
-productions of India, and amongst the last not the least beneficial to
-man was cotton.
-
-Although Scylax of Caryandra, an emissary of Darius Hydaspes, had
-descended the Indus to the sea about a hundred and eighty years
-previously (B.C. 509), other nations had derived no benefit from his
-investigations. But his report of the fertility, high cultivation, and
-opulence of the country he had passed through inflamed his master's
-greed, and made Darius impatient to become possessor of a territory so
-valuable. This he soon accomplished, and though his conquests seem not
-to have extended beyond the districts watered by the Indus, he levied a
-tribute from it which equalled in amount one-third of the whole revenue
-of the Persian Monarchy.
-
-Until Alexander became master of Persia no commercial intercourse seems
-to have been carried on by sea between that country and India. The
-ancient rulers of Persia, induced by a peculiar precept of their
-religion which enjoined them to guard with the utmost care against the
-defilement of any of the "elements," and also by a fear of foreign
-invasion, obstructed by artificial works near their mouths the
-navigation of the great rivers which gave access to the interior of the
-country. As their subjects, however, were no less desirous than the
-people around them of possessing the valuable productions and elegant
-manufactures of India, these latter were conveyed to all parts of their
-dominions by land carriage. The goods destined for the northern
-provinces were borne on camels from the banks of the Indus to those of
-the Oxus, down the stream of which they were carried to the Caspian Sea,
-and distributed, partly by land and partly by navigable rivers, through
-the different countries bounded on the one hand by the Caspian, and on
-the other by the Euxine, or Black Sea; whilst those of India intended
-for the southern and interior districts were transported by land from
-the Caspian Gates to some of the great rivers, by which they were
-dispersed through every part of the country. This was the ancient mode
-of intercourse with India, whilst the Persian Empire was governed by its
-native princes; and, as Robertson says, "it has been observed in every
-age that when any branch of commerce has got into a certain channel,
-although it may not be the best or most convenient one, it requires long
-time and persistent efforts to give it a different direction."[38]
-
-  [38] Robertson's 'Historical Disquisition Concerning India.'
-
-Alexander of Macedon was not a man likely to permit the existence of
-impediments in the way of that which he knew to be highly conducive to
-national progress and prosperity--namely, the expansion of commerce and
-facility of communication. On his return, therefore, from India to Susa,
-he, in person, surveyed the course of the Euphrates and Tigris, and
-gave directions for the removal of the cataracts and dams, which had so
-long rendered the upper waters of these rivers inaccessible from the
-sea. His wise plans and splendid schemes were cut short by his early
-death, B.C. 324; but his surviving generals, though they quarrelled with
-each other, did their best to carry out his policy and the measures
-which he had concerted with so much sagacity.
-
-His successor, Seleucus, entertained so high an opinion of the
-advantages to be derived from commercial intercourse with India that he
-organized another expedition, which must have been very successful,
-though no particulars of it have come down to us. He also sent to
-Sandracottus, King of the Prasii, an ambassador, Megasthenes, who
-penetrated to Palebothra (the modern Allahabad), at the confluence of
-the Jumna and the Ganges.
-
-Meanwhile Ptolemy Soter, another of Alexander's generals, who had
-enjoyed his confidence and entered into his plans more thoroughly than
-any of his other officers, took possession of Egypt, and strove to
-secure for Alexandria the advantage of the trade with India. Some say
-that it was he who erected the lighthouse at the mouth of the harbour of
-Alexandria which was regarded as one of the seven wonders of the world,
-who built there the magnificent temple of Serapis, and who founded the
-celebrated library and museum for the benefit of learning and the
-cultivation of science.[39]
-
-  [39] See Appendix H.
-
-His son, Ptolemy Philadelphus, completed those works, and, further to
-attract the Indian trade to Alexandria, commenced to form a canal, one
-hundred and seventy-five feet wide, and forty-five feet deep, between
-Arsinoe (Suez) and the eastern branch of the Nile, by means of which the
-productions of India might be conveyed to Alexandria entirely by water.
-But this work was never finished, and as the navigation of the northern
-extremity of the Arabian Gulf (the Red Sea) was so difficult and
-dangerous as to be greatly dreaded, Ptolemy built a city, which he
-called Berenice, further down the west coast of that sea, about lat.
-24 deg. This new city soon became the chief port of communication between
-Egypt and India. Goods landed there were carried by camels across the
-desert of Thebais to Coptos, a distance of about 320 English miles, and
-from there down the Nile to Alexandria, whence they were transhipped to
-the various countries on the Mediterranean.
-
-Thus by the exploits and far-sighted policy of Alexander the Great were
-the then civilized nations of Europe made practically acquainted with
-calicoes, muslins, and other piece-goods--clothing materials which they
-had never previously seen, although probably for more than two thousand
-years these had been woven in the simple looms of India from the soft,
-white, "vegetable-lamb's wool that grew on trees"; and had during that
-long period supplied the principal raiment of a population of many
-millions.
-
-As the Persians had an unconquerable dislike of the sea, the seat of
-intercourse with India was the more easily established in Egypt, and it
-is remarkable how soon and how regularly the commerce with the East came
-to be carried on by the channel in which the sagacity of Alexander had
-destined it to flow.
-
-The Egyptian merchants took on board their cargoes of Indian produce at
-Patala (now Tatta) on the lower Delta of the Indus, at Barygaza (now
-Baroche, on the Nerbuddah) and in the Gulf of Cambay, and probably also
-at Kurrachee and Surat. As their vessels were of small burden, and as
-they, themselves, though sufficiently acquainted with astronomy to make
-some use of the stars, had no knowledge of the mariner's compass, the
-prudent merchantmen crept timidly along within sight of land, following
-the outline of every bay, and skirting the shores of Persia and Arabia
-and the western coast of Lower Egypt to Berenice. Though the course was
-tedious and the voyage prolonged, the traffic prospered, and was thus
-carried on for more than three centuries. When Egypt was conquered by
-Julius Caesar, B.C. 30, and, after the battle of Actium, became a Roman
-province under Augustus, it continued undisturbed. The taste for luxury
-at Rome gave a new impetus to commerce with India, and at this time four
-hundred sailing craft were engaged in the trade.
-
-About A.D. 50, an important discovery was made which greatly facilitated
-intercourse between Egypt and the East, and diminished the time occupied
-by the voyage. Hippalus, the commander of a vessel trading with India,
-noticed the periodical winds called the "monsoons," or "trade-winds,"
-and how steadily they blew during one part of the year from the east,
-and during the other from the west. Having observed this to occur
-regularly every year, he ventured to relinquish the slow and circuitous
-coasting route, and stretched boldly from the mouth of the Arabian Gulf
-across the ocean, and was carried by the western monsoon to Musiris, on
-the Malabar coast. This was one of the greatest achievements in
-navigation in ancient history, and opened the best communication between
-East and West that was known for fourteen hundred years afterwards.
-
-Arrian (who wrote A.D. 131) says that at that date Indian cottons of
-large width, fine cottons, muslins, plain and figured, and cotton for
-stuffing couches and beds, were landed at Aduli (the present Massowah),
-and that Barygaza was the port from which they were chiefly shipped.
-
-The Romans also established an intercourse by land, by way of Palmyra
-("Tadmor in the Wilderness"), which by means of this trade rose to great
-opulence; but even after the removal of the seat of government from Rome
-to Constantinople, in the year 329, the Roman Empire was still supplied
-with the productions of India by way of Egypt. The trade that might have
-been carried on between India and Constantinople by land was prevented
-by the Persians.
-
-The Indo-Egyptian maritime traffic established by Alexander, and
-encouraged by Ptolemy Lagus and his son, prospered for nearly a thousand
-years. It survived the downfall of the Roman Empire, A.D. 476, and
-lasted until the conquest of Egypt by the Mahometans under Amru Benalas,
-the general of Caliph Omar, A.D. 634.
-
-As no communication was carried on between Mahometans and Christians,
-the capture of Alexandria by the Saracens prevented the nations of
-Europe obtaining the products of India through Egypt, and this valuable
-route of international communication was abruptly stopped.
-
-I have devoted some space to a description of the first maritime trade
-with India, established by the wisdom of Alexander, and suddenly
-arrested by Mahometan bigotry, because the history of that commerce is,
-more or less, the history of the cotton trade, and explains how the use
-of cotton and its progress westward were gradually developed and
-subsequently checked.
-
-It will be convenient to make this date--the commencement of "the dark
-ages"--a halting-place from which to mark how far cotton and the fabrics
-made from it were appreciated by the nations who were chiefly benefited
-by the sea-carriage of Indian products in general.
-
-The very ancient Egyptians were apparently unacquainted with cotton. At
-one time there was considerable discussion concerning the substance from
-which the swathing bandages of the mummies were woven, and some
-_savants_ claimed to have discovered cotton amongst them. But the
-microscope quickly decided that question, for the character and
-appearance of the fibres of cotton and flax are so markedly different
-that any young microscopist may distinguish one from the other with
-ease. It was found that in every case these bandages were made of linen.
-Negative evidence to the same effect is furnished by the fact that no
-pictures or other similitude of the cotton plant has been found in
-Egyptian tombs, whereas accurate representations of flax occur, in its
-different stages of growth, harvest, and manufacture.[40]
-
-  [40] In the Grotto of El Kab are paintings representing, amongst other
-  scenes, a field of corn and a crop of flax. Four persons are employed
-  in pulling up the flax by the roots; another binds it into sheaves; a
-  sixth carries it to a distance; and a seventh separates the linseed
-  from the stem by means of a four-toothed "ripple," which he uses just
-  in the same way as it is now used in Europe. See Hamilton's
-  '_AEgyptiaca_,' Plate xxiii., and Yates's '_Textrinum Antiquorum_,' p.
-  255.
-
-The circumstance mentioned by Herodotus, that King Amasis of Egypt, in
-sending as a gift to Sparta a corselet padded with cotton and ornamented
-with gold thread, thought it a fit present from a King, and in
-dedicating a similar one to Minerva in her temple at Lindus considered
-it an offering worthy of the goddess, shows that it was at that period a
-novelty and a rarity. The first knowledge of cotton in Egypt may, I
-think, be correctly assigned to that date--about B.C. 550. Linen was the
-principal clothing material of the Egyptians, and the manufacture of it
-from flax by them is probably of as great antiquity as the growth and
-wearing of cotton in India. The embalmed bodies of their dead were
-wrapped in it during successive ages through a period of more than two
-thousand years, and their priests wore it during the same period, its
-clean white texture being accepted as a semblance of purity, whereas
-wool, taken from a sheep, was deemed a profane attire.
-
-Flax and linen are frequently referred to in the Bible. The earliest
-mention of the former is in Exodus ix. 31, in the account of the plague
-of hail that devastated Lower Egypt B.C. 1491, and destroyed, when they
-were nearly ripe for harvest, the two most important crops of the
-Egyptians--that of the barley on which they relied for food for
-themselves and for export to other nations, and the flax on which they
-depended for their clothing and manufacturing employment. For flax was
-not only used for wearing apparel, but the coarser kinds were employed
-for making sail-cloths, ropes, nets, and for other purposes for which
-hemp is generally used.
-
-It is surprising that notwithstanding the comparative proximity of Egypt
-to India, cotton, which had been for ages so extensively manufactured in
-the latter country, should have remained so long unknown or
-unappreciated by a people to whom it would have furnished a cheaper and
-more comfortable article of dress than the flax-plant. But it is certain
-that linen was held in favour and the use of it prevailed in Egypt till
-the Christian era, although the cotton fabrics imported into Berenice
-were gradually coming into more general wear. Pacatus mentions that Mark
-Antony's soldiers wore cotton in Egypt, and says that they felt so much
-discomfort from the heat that they could hardly tolerate light cotton
-clothing, even in the shade.
-
-From a passage in Pliny's Natural History (lib. xix. cap. 1) it would
-appear that the cotton plant was cultivated in Upper Egypt in his day
-(A.D. 77), and this has been accepted as genuine and quoted by Dr.
-Ure[41] and others. But Mr. Yates, in his '_Textrinum Antiquorum_' (p.
-459), shows good reason for believing that the paragraph was
-interpolated in the text of one of the MSS. of Pliny's work, after
-having been originally an annotation in the margin of an earlier copy.
-This explanation clears up an otherwise involved and disconnected
-passage, and there are other reasons besides those given by Mr. Yates
-for believing that his surmise is correct.
-
-  [41] 'The Cotton Manufacture of Great Britain.'
-
-Abdollatiph, an Arabian physician who visited Egypt at the end of the
-twelfth century, does not mention cotton in the account which he wrote
-(A.D. 1203), of the plants of that country; and Prospero Alpini, the
-Paduan physician and botanist, who some four centuries later directed
-his attention to the natural history of Egypt, says[42] that the
-Egyptians then imported cotton for their use, that the herbaceous kind
-(_Gossypium herbaceum_), from which cotton was obtained in Syria and
-Cyprus, did not grow in Egypt, but that the tree kind (_G. arboreum_)
-was cultivated as an ornamental plant in private gardens, and in very
-small quantities, its down not being used for spinning.
-
-  [42] '_De Plantis AEgypti_,' cap. 18.
-
-Belon, who was in Egypt about thirty years before Alpini, makes no
-mention of cotton growing there; but says that he found it in Arabia, at
-the north of the Arabian Gulf, near Mount Sinai.
-
-It would appear, therefore, that up to the beginning of the seventeenth
-century the Egyptians were importers, not cultivators, of cotton.
-
-From a passage in the comedy 'Pausimachus' of Cecilius Statius (who died
-B.C. 169), quoted by Mr. Yates in the work already referred to, the
-Greeks seem to have been acquainted with muslins and calicoes brought
-from India 200 years before Christ; and about a century later the Romans
-adopted the Oriental custom of using cotton-cloth as a protection from
-the sun's rays. Ornamental coverings for tents were made from it, and
-awnings of striped and coloured calico were spread over the theatres,
-and gave welcome shade to the spectators. It was also used for
-sail-cloth. Cotton fabrics are frequently mentioned by the poets of the
-Augustan age, and by writers of a later date; but the finer qualities
-are almost always referred to in a manner which indicates that by the
-Greeks and Romans they were regarded rather as an expensive and curious
-production than as an article of common use. Their dress was almost
-entirely woollen, which, as they frequently used the bath, was always
-comfortable; and, for cooler wear, as Mr. Yates truly observes, "there
-appears no reason why cotton fabrics should have been used in preference
-to linen. The latter is more cleanly, more durable, and much less liable
-to take fire; and amongst the ancients it must have been much the
-cheaper of the two." In Rome and Athens the finest woven goods were
-extravagantly dear, for the body of the people were practically excluded
-from manufacturing work. This was principally carried on by slaves for
-the benefit of their masters, for all the great men had large
-establishments of slaves who understood the art of manufacturing most of
-the articles necessary for ordinary use. The importation of cotton and
-piece-goods into ancient Greece and Rome was therefore comparatively
-inconsiderable.
-
-With the fall of the Roman Empire, into which Greece had previously been
-absorbed, art and science in Europe sank into a death-like trance which
-lasted for many centuries. We will therefore trace the progress of the
-Indian cotton trade in other directions during the long period that
-elapsed before science and art revived.
-
-As India carried on a very important manufacture of cotton for home
-consumption, as well as for her large exports, it might be supposed that
-China would have been led to participate in the advantages offered by
-it. But, as in Egypt flax had been for many ages the raw material
-principally used for the clothing of the population, so in China fabrics
-woven from the web of the silkworm were, from the earliest times, used
-for the dress of all classes of the people. By authorities of high
-repute in China we are informed that Si-Hing, wife of the Emperor
-Hoang-Ti, began to breed silkworms about 2,600 years before Christ, and
-that the mulberry tree was cultivated to supply them with food four
-hundred years afterwards.
-
-India was the country of cotton; Egypt, of flax; China, of silk; and in
-the two latter countries (especially in the case of the exclusive
-Chinese) vested interests for a long time barred the way against the
-adoption of the new foreign material. Cotton vestments and robes of
-honour were occasionally presented to the Chinese emperors by foreign
-ambassadors, and were highly appreciated and admired. The Emperor Ou-Ti,
-whose reign commenced B.C. 502, had one of these robes; but it was not
-till fifteen hundred years later that cotton began to be cultivated in
-China for manufacturing purposes. Towards the end of the seventh century
-the herbaceous species was grown in the gardens of Pekin, but only for
-the sake of its flowers. When the country was conquered by the Mongolian
-Tartars, A.D. 1280, the emperors of that dynasty took all possible pains
-to extend the culture of cotton, and imposed an annual tribute of it on
-several provinces. The cultivators, merchants, weavers, and wearers of
-silk (which included the whole nation) regarded this as a dangerous
-innovation seriously affecting their rights and habits, and zealously
-tried to maintain the established usages of the people. Eventually,
-however, their prejudices were overcome, and at present nine persons out
-of ten in China are clad in cotton raiment.
-
-Returning to the dark ages of Europe, and the rise of the Mahometan
-power there, we find that by the end of the seventh century the
-cultivation and manufacture of cotton in Arabia and Syria had become an
-important industry, and had also crept along the northern coast of
-Africa. When, therefore, the Saracens and Moors invaded Spain and
-wrested it from the Goths (A.D. 712) they brought with them a knowledge
-of the plant and its uses. Being well skilled in agriculture, they
-immediately introduced in the conquered territory the cultivation of
-cotton, sugar, rice, and the mulberry--the latter being in favour for
-the use of its leaves as food for the silkworm. Looms were put to work
-in almost every town, and the growth and weaving of cotton were carried
-on with great and increasing success until the fifteenth century.
-Barcelona was celebrated for its cotton sail-cloth, of which it supplied
-a great quantity to ship-owners, and stout cotton stuffs like fustian
-were also qualities for which the Spanish looms were famous. Cotton
-paper, too, seems to have been first made by the Spanish Arabs, although
-about the same time it was substituted for papyrus in Egypt. A paper was
-likewise manufactured in Spain from linen rags which was much admired by
-the literary men of the time. But the religious antipathy which existed
-between the Moors and Christians prevented the spread of these and other
-Oriental arts; so that when the Moorish domination in Spain was crushed
-by the conquest of Grenada, in 1492, the manufactures which the Moors
-had introduced and fostered relapsed into barbarous neglect. The cotton
-plant is still found growing wild in some parts of the Peninsula. Under
-the influence of the Moors cotton was cultivated in Greece, Italy,
-Sicily and Malta, but upon their expulsion from Europe its growth was
-transferred to the African shores of the Mediterranean.
-
-During the sway of the Mahometans the passage of Indian commodities to
-North-Western and Central Europe was so effectually barred by them that
-the trade dwindled, and the demand for the products of the East almost
-ceased. When the route through Egypt was closed, the Persians, who by
-that time had learned the advantages of commercial intercourse with
-other nations, seized the opportunity of diverting the traffic of the
-Persian Gulf by the Euphrates and Tigris to Bagdad, and thence across
-the Desert of Palmyra to the Mediterranean ports. But as Constantinople
-was also in the hands of the Caliphs, the roads to Europe were long and
-difficult. The greater part of the goods from India had, as I have
-mentioned (p. 58), to be carried by land on the backs of camels with the
-great caravans which, from time immemorial, have been the chief means of
-commercial intercourse between the nations of Eastern, Central, and
-Northern Asia, and the countries to the south and west of them.
-
-Besides the two great caravans of pilgrims and merchants which, annually
-starting from Cairo and Damascus, met at Mecca, exchanged their
-merchandize there, and disseminated it on their return in every country
-they passed through, there were others consisting entirely of merchants
-whose sole object was commerce. These at stated seasons set out from
-different parts of Persia by ancient routes, on journeys of enormous
-length--those for the East visited India, and even the furthest
-extremities of China. Their average rate of travel was eighteen miles
-per day; and as the time of their departure and their route were both
-known, they were met by the people of all the countries through which
-they passed, for the purpose of sale, purchase, or barter. Hence the
-establishment, as commercial gathering-places, of the great fairs, of
-which that still held annually at Nijni Novgorod is a well-known
-example. The value of the trade thus carried on was far beyond the
-conception of any one who has not given especial attention to the
-subject. That between Russia and China, which has only been discontinued
-within the last few years, has been very important. In the time of Peter
-the Great, though the capitals of the two empires were six thousand
-three hundred and seventy-eight miles apart, and the route lay for more
-than four hundred miles through an uninhabited desert, caravans
-travelled regularly from one to the other. Tedious as this mode of
-conveyance appears, it sufficed for the traffic in Eastern produce at a
-period when the whole of Europe had but little time or taste for the
-refinements of life, and but little means of purchasing them. Nations
-were at that time frequently at war, the feudal barons kept their
-vassals under arms, a soldier's career was the only means of acquiring
-distinction, and luxuries obtained by commerce were looked upon as
-effeminate and degrading.
-
-The arts and sciences first revived in Italy. The republics of Venice
-and Genoa turned their attention to commerce, and, in the year 1204, the
-Venetians, under Dandolo, and assisted by the soldiers of the fourth
-crusade, took the city of Constantinople from the Greeks, and, for a
-time, had the advantage of carrying on the Indian trade. They only held
-it, however, for fifty-seven years; for, in 1261, the Greeks, under
-Michael Palaeologus, and aided by the Genoese, recovered possession of
-the city, and Genoa acquired the privileges which Venice, for a short
-time, had enjoyed. The Venetians then, setting aside their religious
-scruples, made a treaty with the Mahometans, and obtained the produce of
-India through Egypt.
-
-The progress of the cotton trade, which had for so long been restricted,
-now became more rapid. In the fourteenth century the fustians and
-dimities of Venice and Milan were much esteemed, especially in Northern
-Europe. Half a century later the manufacture was established in Saxony
-and Suabia, whence it made its way into the Netherlands. At Bruges and
-Ghent a large trade arose, especially in the fustians which were
-manufactured in Prussia and Germany, and were exported thence to
-Flanders and Spain.
-
-At the end of the fifteenth century two events took place within a few
-years of each other which formed an important epoch, not only in the
-history of the cotton trade, but in the history of the world--namely,
-the discovery of America by Columbus, and that of the passage to India
-round the Cape of Good Hope by Vasco da Gama. The commerce of Genoa
-having been supplanted by the Venetians, Christopher Columbus, a
-Genoese, conceived the plan of sailing to India by a new course. It
-having been admitted by philosophers that the world was globular, he
-rightly argued that any point on it might be reached by sailing
-westward, as well as by travelling eastward. He therefore laid his
-scheme, first, before the Council of the Republic of Genoa, and
-afterwards before the King of Portugal; but, as it was unfavourably
-received by both, he persuaded Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to grant
-him two ships, and with these he sailed westward in search of India, on
-the 3rd of August, 1492. On his arrival, thirty days afterwards, at one
-of the Bahamas, the first land he saw after crossing the Atlantic, his
-vessels were surrounded by canoes filled with natives bringing cotton
-yarn and thread in skeins for exchange. And when he landed in Cuba,
-which he at first supposed to be the mainland of India, he saw the women
-there wearing dresses made of cotton cloth, and also found in use strong
-nets made of cotton cords, which the inhabitants stretched between poles
-and in which they slept at night. These were called "hamacas," whence
-comes our word "hammock." The people there had also so great a quantity
-of spun cotton on spindles that it was estimated there was 12,000 lbs.
-weight of it in a single house. Oviedo says the same of Hayti, and, at
-the discovery of Guadaloupe, the same year, cotton thread in skeins was
-found everywhere, and looms wherewith to weave it. There, as well as at
-Hayti and Cuba, the idols were made of cotton, and, in 1520, Fernando
-Magalhaens found the natives of Brazil using cotton for stuffing beds.
-The growth and manufacture of cotton, which were the first things
-brought to the notice of Columbus in the "West Indies," and which were
-soon afterwards found existing in various parts of South America, had
-apparently been handed down to those who practised them from a time far
-away in the past.
-
-The Eastern Hemisphere is popularly regarded, even at the present day,
-as possessing a monopoly of antiquity, or, at any rate, of ancient
-civilization. It is not difficult to understand the mental process by
-which this notion is produced. In the first place the mind is hardly
-prepared to receive the idea that the inhabitants of countries of the
-existence of which we have, comparatively, so recently become aware as
-the continent of America should have attained to a high degree of
-civilization long before the natives of Britain emerged from savage
-barbarism. This feeling found expression in the distinctive
-appellations given respectively to the two hemispheres, the "Old World"
-and the "New World." Secondly, the only written historical records that
-have come down to us from the remote past relate to Europe, Asia, and
-Africa. But the oldest authentic history is only yesterday's news in
-comparison with the age of the world, and that which was called "the New
-World" is as old as the rest of the globe, and, apparently, was
-populated at quite as early a period. For in Mexico and Central America
-are found unmistakable proofs of the greatness and culture of former
-dwellers in the land. Immense piles of cyclopean masonry, of
-inconceivable grandeur, and incalculable antiquity; mounds and pyramids
-as massive as those of Egypt, huge reservoirs for water, aqueducts,
-ruins of public buildings, temples and palaces, tell of a powerful and
-wealthy nation, skilled in engineering and other sciences, and in all
-the important arts of civilized life. These were followed by successive
-races, differing from each other in habits, laws, arts, manufactures and
-religious worship. But all have passed away and out of memory as
-completely as if they had never been. We know nothing of their wars or
-dynasties, their prosperity or decay. Their works are their sole
-history. Only their ruined monuments remain to show that they once
-existed; and these are sometimes found in forest solitudes so far from
-the habitations of those who now occupy their territories, that the
-traveller who unexpectedly comes upon them is startled, like Crusoe by
-the foot-print, to find that man has been there.
-
-In Peru, too, the companions of Pizarro found everywhere evidence of a
-vast antiquity, and of the former existence of a people fully equal to
-the Romans in grandeur of conception and skill in construction of their
-marvellous public works. The remains of the capital city of the Chinus
-of Northern Peru cover not less than a hundred and twenty square miles.
-Tombs, temples and palaces arise on every hand, ruined for centuries,
-but still traceable; immense pyramidal structures, some of them half a
-mile in circuit; prisons, furnaces for smelting metals, and all the
-structures of a busy city may still be found there. Cieca de Leon
-mentions having seen at Teahuanaca great buildings, and stones so large
-and so overgrown that it was incomprehensible how the power of man could
-have placed them where they were. In another place he saw enormous
-gateways made of masses of stone, some of which were thirty feet long,
-fifteen feet high, and six feet thick. The ancient Peruvians made
-considerable use of aqueducts, which they built with great skill of hewn
-stones and cement. One of these aqueducts extended four hundred and
-fifty miles across sierras and rivers. Their roads, macadamized with
-broken stone mixed with lime and asphalte, were described by Humboldt as
-"marvellous," and he said that none of the Roman roads he had seen in
-Italy, in the south of France, or in Spain, had appeared to him more
-imposing than the great road of the ancient Peruvians from Quito to
-Cuzco, and through the whole length of the empire to Chili.
-
-These were the works of men who lived thousands of years before the
-times of the Incas, and amongst their manufactures was that of cotton.
-
-In 1831, Lord Colchester brought from ancient tombs at Arica, in Peru,
-and placed in the British Museum, some mummy-cloths woven of cotton, the
-fibres of which seen under the microscope are very tortuous, and
-resemble those of _Gossypium hirsutum_, which is probably the primitive
-cotton plant of South America. The cultivation and manufacture of
-cotton, therefore, in the "New World" seems to have been at least
-coeval with the similar use of it in India.
-
-When Pizarro conquered Peru, in 1532, he found the cotton manufacture
-still existent and flourishing there, for the works of the Peruvians in
-cotton and wool (the latter chiefly that of the vicuna) exceeded in
-fineness anything known in Europe at that time. He also learned that,
-from the foundation of the empire, at an unknown date, the dress of the
-Inca, or Sovereign, had always been made of cotton, and of many colours,
-by the "Virgins of the Sun."
-
-When Cortez and his comrades conquered Mexico in 1519, the people had
-neither flax, nor silk, nor wool of sheep. They supplied the want of
-these with cotton, fine feathers, and the fur of hares and rabbits. The
-use of cotton, which had long previously existed, as is known from Aztec
-hieroglyphics, was as common and almost as diversified amongst the
-Mexicans as it is now amongst the nations of Europe. They made of it
-clothing of every kind, hangings, defensive armour, and other things
-innumerable. Cortez was so struck by the beautiful texture of some
-articles that were presented to him by the natives of Yucatan, that a
-few days after his arrival in Mexico he sent home to the Emperor Charles
-V., amongst other rich presents, a variety of cotton mantles, some all
-white, and others chequered and figured in divers colours. On the
-outside they had a long nap, like a shaggy cloth, but on the inside they
-were without any colour or nap. A number of "under-waistcoats,"
-"handkerchiefs," "counterpanes," and "carpets" of cotton were also sent
-to Europe by Cortez.
-
-Columbus's great discovery was not immediately turned to account, so far
-as the cotton trade was concerned, although it was destined to be most
-valuable to that industry at a later period. Astonishing as was his
-success, and great and extensive as were its results in finding a "New
-World" hardly inferior in magnitude to one-third of the habitable
-surface of the globe, he had not achieved exactly that which was the
-original object of his voyage--the discovery of a westerly course to
-India. When, therefore, only six years afterwards, a direct sea route to
-the East, by sailing round the Cape of Good Hope, was found, the exploit
-was for some time regarded as the more important of the two, because its
-probable effects were more easily perceptible.
-
-The Portuguese, who had explored the west coasts of Africa which lay
-nearest to their own country, and had made several unsuccessful attempts
-to find a passage eastward, determined to make another vigorous effort
-to surmount the difficulty. Accordingly, on the 8th of July, 1497, a
-small squadron sailed from the Tagus, under the command of Vasco da
-Gama. After a long and dangerous voyage this navigator rounded the
-promontory which had for several years been the object of the hopes and
-dread of his countrymen, and skirting the south-east coast, arrived at
-Melinda, about two degrees north of Zanzibar. There he found a people so
-far civilized that they carried on an active commerce, not only with the
-nations on their own coast, but with the remote countries of Asia.
-Taking some of these natives on board his ships as pilots, he sailed
-across the Indian Ocean, and on the 22nd of May, 1498, landed at
-Calicut, on the Malabar coast, ten months and two days after his
-departure from Lisbon.
-
-Vasco da Gama during his short stay at Melinda had little time for
-inquiring into the condition of the cotton trade of the country on whose
-shores he had landed, and it does not seem to have been forced upon his
-attention as it was on that of Columbus. But when Odoardo Barbosa, of
-Lisbon, visited South Africa eighteen years afterwards (in 1516), he
-found the natives wearing clothes of cotton. In 1590, cotton cloth woven
-on the coast of Guinea was imported into London from the Bight of Benin,
-and modern travellers in the interior of Africa concur in the opinion
-that cotton is indigenous there, and in stating that it is spun and
-woven into cloth in every region of that continent. From the beauty of
-the dye and the designs in some of the cotton dresses, it is justly
-inferred to be a manufacture of very ancient standing. We have evidence,
-therefore, that in Africa, as well as in Asia and America, the cotton
-plant had a separate centre of indigenous growth, and that from a very
-remote period its vegetable wool was manufactured into useful and
-ornamental articles of clothing.[43]
-
-  [43] The cotton plant was also found indigenous in the Sandwich
-  Islands, the Galapagos, etc. It is doubtful whether the cotton found
-  in the Bornean Archipelago had not been carried eastward from India.
-
-The Portuguese took every possible precaution to secure the prize which
-by the courage and perseverance of their admiral they had been enabled
-to grasp, and to maintain the rights which priority of discovery was, in
-those days, supposed to confer. A chain of forts or factories was
-established for the protection of their trade; whilst for the extension
-of it they took possession of Malacca, and their ships visited every
-port from the Cape to Canton.
-
-The Venetians saw with alarm the ruin that impended over them through
-the successful rivalry in trade of the Portuguese, but were powerless to
-prevent a competition against which their merchants were unable to
-contend. They therefore formed an alliance with the Turks under the
-Sultans Selim and his successor, Solyman the Magnificent, and incited
-them to send a fleet against the prosperous Portuguese. They even
-allowed the Turks to cut timber in the forests of Dalmatia with which to
-build their ships; and when twelve of these were finished, Solyman
-manned them with his Janissaries, and sent them to harass the Indian
-trade. The Portuguese met them with undaunted bravery, and, after
-several conflicts, vanquished the Ottoman squadron, and remained masters
-of the Indian Ocean.
-
-The immediate effect of direct communication with the East by sea was
-the lowering of the prices of Indian produce. Commerce naturally sought
-the cheapest market. The trade of Venice was annihilated, and the stream
-of wealth that had flowed to her treasury was dried at its source. The
-merchandize of India was shipped from the most convenient ports, and
-conveyed cheaply, safely, and directly to Lisbon, and thence was
-distributed through Europe. A plentiful supply of Indian goods at
-reasonable rates caused a rapid increase in the demand for them, and
-amongst the trades to which this gave an impetus was that in cotton.
-
-Up to this period no cotton was woven in England; the small quantity
-that was used for candle-wicks, &c., came either from Italy or the
-Levant. Linen was first woven in England in 1253, by Flemish hands; but
-for nearly a century afterwards almost all the cotton, woollen and linen
-fabrics consumed there were manufactured on the continent, and a great
-quantity of British wool was exported to Flanders and Holland. Edward
-III., however, gave encouragement to foreign skill, and in 1328 some
-Flemings settled in Manchester, and commenced the weaving of certain
-cloths, which, though composed of wool, were known as "Manchester
-cottons," and thus paved the way for the great cotton manufacture for
-which that part of Lancashire is now famous.
-
-In 1560, England imported, through Antwerp, cotton brought from Italy
-and the Levant, as well as that carried from India to Lisbon by the
-Portuguese, and showed some anxiety to compete in its manufacture with
-foreign countries. An impulse was given to this ambition in 1585 by a
-fresh influx of Flemish workpeople, who, driven from their own country
-to escape the cruelties of the Duke of Alba during the religious
-persecution of the Low Countries by the Spaniards, found an asylum in
-England, and brought with them the skill in workmanship which adjoining
-States had long envied.
-
-India, however, continued far in advance of every European country in
-the spinning and weaving of cotton to nearly the middle of the
-eighteenth century. The activity of the trade in her piece goods was
-looked upon as ruinous to the home manufacturer, though most profitable
-to the merchant, and we find Daniel Defoe, in 1708, thus lamenting, in
-his 'Weekly Review,' the preference for Indian chintz, calico, &c.
-
-"It crept," he says, "into our houses, our closets, our bedchambers;
-curtains, cushions, chairs, and, at last beds themselves were nothing
-but calicoes and Indian stuffs, and, in short, almost everything that
-used to be made of wool or silk, relating either to the dress of the
-women or the furniture of our houses, was supplied by the Indian
-trade.... The several goods brought from India are made five parts in
-six under our price, and, being imported and sold at an extravagant
-advantage, are yet capable of underselling the cheapest thing we can set
-about."
-
-The Portuguese remained in undisturbed possession of the lucrative trade
-with India till the end of the sixteenth century, when the United
-Provinces of the Low Countries challenged their pretensions to an
-exclusive right of commerce in the East; and in 1595, the Dutch East
-India Company was formed. The English soon followed, and five years
-later (in 1600) the British East India Company was incorporated by Royal
-Charter. It immediately obtained from the native princes permission to
-establish forts and factories, and in 1624 was invested with powers of
-government. The Portuguese monopoly and predominance in the East was
-overturned and crushed, and England and Holland attained supremacy in
-naval power and commercial wealth.
-
-The cotton trade did not so quickly benefit by this as might have been
-expected. It remained stationary for more than a century afterwards. But
-in 1738 commenced the history of those wonderful inventions which by
-giving the power of almost unlimited production to our people
-revolutionized the manufacturing world. England, which two centuries ago
-imported only L5000 worth of raw cotton, now pays more than L40,000,000
-(forty million pounds) sterling every year for her supply for twelve
-months;[44] and as this supply is drawn from every quarter of the globe,
-she can appreciate the effect upon her cotton trade of the various
-maritime discoveries mentioned in these pages. From the country
-discovered by Columbus, and populated chiefly by her own offspring,
-England receives by far the largest portion of her requirements. The
-route round Cape Horn, discovered by Fernando Magalhaens in 1520, has
-its advantages as another road to the colonies and Eastern possessions
-of Great Britain. The course round the Cape of Good Hope, by which Vasco
-da Gama navigated his ships to Calicut, was for three and a half
-centuries the main road between India and Western Europe for personal
-intercourse, as well as the conveyance of heavy goods, such as cotton;
-and, though long, it was direct, and comparatively cheap. But the
-superiority of the first sea-route originally established by the
-foresight and genius of the great Macedonian conqueror was demonstrated
-in 1845, when Lieutenant Waghorn, a young officer in the service of the
-East India Company, with invincible ardour, and determined perseverance
-against official obstruction and innumerable obstacles, once more made
-Egypt the causeway between Europe and India. Alexandria, built on a site
-admirably chosen by its founder as a centre of commercial traffic, and
-placed by the prudence of his engineers just sufficiently far from the
-outflow of the Nile to be free from the danger of its harbour being
-silted up by the sediment of that muddy river, again became the port of
-arrival and departure: but increased skill in seamanship and the command
-of steam power having diminished the risk and difficulty of navigating
-the upper part of the Red Sea, Suez, the ancient Arsinoe, was selected
-for the corresponding depot, as offering a shorter passage by land from
-sea to sea than the old road by Berenice, Coptos, and the Nile. Waghorn
-bravely carried out his scheme in the face of the most vexatious
-opposition and discouragement. He built at his own expense eight
-halting-places in the desert between Cairo and Suez, provided carriages
-for passengers, and placed small steamers on the Nile and on the canal
-of Alexandria. At last the British and the Indian authorities, who had
-thrown every obstacle in his way, with an obstinate perversity which
-would be almost incredible if it were unique, graciously consented to
-countenance his plans, and to allow the mail bags to and from India to
-reach their destination six weeks earlier than by their former journey.
-Thus Thomas Waghorn brought England and her Eastern possessions by that
-much nearer to each other, and for this achievement deserves the
-gratitude of his countrymen and an honourable place in history.
-
-  [44] The importation of cotton into Liverpool and London in 1886 was
-  as follows:--
-
-                            lbs.
-    American           1,317,562,480
-    Brazilian             33,832,400
-    Egyptian             173,340,000
-    West India, etc.       9,529,910
-    Surat                148,306,700
-    Madras                26,729,200
-    Bengal and Rangoon    32,324,600
-                       -------------
-    Total              1,741,625,290
-
-  The prices of the different kinds of cotton vary according to their
-  respective qualities, and are also influenced by the fluctuations of
-  their market value. During 1886 the best Egyptian cotton was sometimes
-  sold as high as 71/2_d._ per lb., and the inferior as low as 33/4_d._ per
-  lb.
-
-  The total value of the cotton imported during 1886 was, as I have
-  said, rather over L40,000,000 sterling.
-
-The new route was, however, unsuitable to the enormous traffic in
-merchandize to and from the East. The unloading of cargoes at Alexandria
-or Suez, their "portage" across the desert, and their re-shipment on
-other vessels at the further side of the Isthmus, was too tedious,
-laborious, and expensive to be practicable; therefore the "Overland
-Route" was chiefly used for the rapid conveyance of the European mails,
-passengers, and light goods, whilst the heavy merchandize, such as
-cotton bales, was conveyed round the Cape as before.
-
-In 1869, a feat of engineering was completed, the importance of which it
-is impossible to exaggerate. By the cutting of a deep and wide canal
-through the narrow strip of land which had previously barred the passage
-by sea round the north-eastern corner of Africa, a water-way was opened
-between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, by which large ships can pass
-from one sea to the other without unloading their cargoes. All honour to
-M. de Lesseps, who, in spite of difficulties apparently insurmountable,
-successfully accomplished this work! He had to contend against grave
-political considerations, national prejudices and jealousies, religious
-fanaticism, vested interests, and the faithless treachery and grasping
-avarice of local officials. It appears to me that amidst political
-complications, conflicting interests, the war of tariffs, and financial
-arrangements, the credit and appreciation most justly due to the author
-of the Suez Canal have been but grudgingly given. But his posthumous
-fame will be lasting, and his name will be renowned in the future
-amongst those of the great path-finders and road-makers of the world,
-whose discoveries and achievements have largely benefited mankind.
-
-The white fleeces of the wool that Alexander and his admiral saw growing
-on trees in India is again conveyed to Europe by the route planned for
-it by the great chieftain of Macedon. The water-way which he possibly
-suggested, and which the son of his general and confidant, Ptolemy,
-endeavoured, but failed, to cut, has been successfully laid open. And,
-although we now draw our chief supply of cotton from the western country
-discovered by Columbus, one result of increased facility of
-communication with the East, in conjunction with perfection of
-machinery, is that the vegetable wool coming therefrom, after giving
-employment to thousands of our people, and adding to our national
-prosperity, is returned by the same route, manufactured into various
-fabrics wherewith to clothe the people who cultivated it.
-
-The subject of this chapter being the cotton trade, I need offer no
-apology for regarding so many of the great events of history from the
-point of view of their influence, especially, upon cotton as an article
-of commerce. Although, however, cotton is but a small item amongst the
-products of India, the lesson which its history forces upon all
-Englishmen (without distinction of religious creed, social rank, or
-political party) concerning the country from which it was first received
-in Europe and Asia is, that the possession of India confers wealth and
-power on her European rulers, and that Egypt is the highway to it. The
-nation that holds India must grasp it firmly lest it be snatched from
-its keeping, must guard carefully and hold strongly the road to it, and
-must be prepared to fight for either or both, if necessary, against any
-combination of enemies. For now, as in times gone by, jealous eyes are
-fixed upon it, and their owners only await an opportunity to put in
-practice that which Wordsworth makes his Rob Roy call
-
-                      "the good old rule,
-                   ... the simple plan,
-    That he shall take who has the power,
-    And he shall keep who can!"
-
-
-
-
-APPENDIX.
-
-
-A (p. 2).
-
-SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE.
-
-Sir John Mandeville, or Maundeville, was of a family that came into
-England with the Conqueror. He is said to have been a man of learning
-and substance, and had studied physic and natural philosophy. He was
-also a good and conscientious man, and was, moreover, the greatest
-traveller of his time. John Bale, in his catalogue of British writers,
-says of him that "he was so well given to the study of learning from his
-childhood that he seemed to plant a good part of his felicitie in the
-same; for he supposed that the honour of his birth would nothing availe
-him except he could render the same more honourable by his knowledge in
-good letters. He therefore well grounded himself in religion by reading
-the Scriptures, and also applied his studies to the art of physicke, a
-profession worthy a noble wit; but amongst other things he was ravished
-with a mighty desire to see the greater parts of the world, as Asia and
-Africa. Having provided all things necessary for his journey, he
-departed from his country in the yeere of Christ 1322, and, as another
-Ulysses, returned home after the space of thirty-four years, and was
-then known to a very few. In the time of his travaile he was in Scythia,
-the greater and lesser Armenia, Egypt, both Libyas, Arabia, Syria,
-Media, Mesopotamia, Persia, Chaldea, Greece, Illyrium, Tartarie and
-divers other kingdoms of the World, and having gotten by this means the
-knowledge of the languages, lest so many and great varieties and things
-miraculous whereof himself had been an eie-witness should perish in
-oblivion, he committed his whole travell of thirty-four yeeres to
-writing in three divers tongues--English, French, and Latine. Being
-arrived again in England, having seen the wickedness of that age, he
-gave out this speech;--'In our time,' he said, 'it may be spoken more
-truly than of old that virtue is gone; the Church is under foot; the
-clergie is in erreur; the Devill raigneth, and Simone beareth the
-sway.'"
-
-A man who in the first part of the fourteenth century could conceive,
-and for thirty-four years persist in carrying out, the intention of
-travelling from one country to another over a great part of the
-habitable globe, must have possessed remarkable qualifications. Indeed,
-his achievements were so extraordinary, and his narrative agrees in so
-many particulars with that of the travels of Marco Polo, that it has
-been suggested that he may never have gone to the East at all, but
-compiled his book from the journals of his predecessor. But it seems to
-me impossible to doubt the correctness of Mr. Halliwell's opinion that
-this suggestion is wholly unjustifiable, and that, after perusal of the
-volume, the judgment of any impartial reader would repudiate such a
-supposition. Sir John Mandeville met with credit and respect in his own
-day, and the transcriber on vellum of a small folio MS. copy of his
-book, written in double columns certainly not more than twenty years
-after his death, prefaces it in a manner which shows that he entertained
-no doubt concerning it.
-
-There are several editions of Sir John Mandeville's account of his
-'Voiages.' The most useful to the general reader are, 1st, that printed
-in London, in 1725, from a manuscript in the Cottonian collection; 2nd,
-a reprint of the above, with a few notes by Mr. J. O. Halliwell, and
-various illustrations, which are _fac-simile_ copies by F. W. Fairholt,
-from the older editions and manuscripts in the Harleian collection,
-published by Lumley in 1837; and, 3rd, a reprint of this later edition,
-published by F. S. Ellis, in 1866.
-
-Sir John Mandeville died at Liege on the 17th of November, 1371. His
-fellow-townsmen of St. Albans appear to have believed that his body was
-brought home to the place of his birth, and buried in St. Albans Abbey,
-for the following doggrel verses were inscribed as his epitaph on one of
-the pillars there:--
-
-    "All ye that pass by, on this pillar cast eye,
-    This Epitaph read if you can;
-    'Twill tell you a Tombe once stood in this room
-    Of a brave, spirited man,
-    Sir John Mandevil by name, a knight of great fame,
-    Born in this honoured Towne;
-    Before him was none that ever was knowne
-    For travaile of so high renowne.
-    As the Knights in the Temple cross-legged in Marble,
-    In armour with sword and with shield,
-    So was this Knight grac'd which Time hath defac'd
-    That nothing but Ruines doth yield.
-    His travailes being done, he shines like the Sun
-    In heavenly Canaan.
-    To which blessed place the Lord, of His grace,
-    Bring us all, man after man."
-
-There is no doubt, however, that Sir John Mandeville was buried in the
-Abbey of the Gulielmites in the town of Liege, where he died; for
-Abrahamus Ortelius, in his 'Itinerarium Belgiae' (p. 16), has printed the
-following epitaph there set over him:--
-
-"_Hic jacet vir nobilis Dominus Johannes de Mandeville, aliter dictus ad
-Barbam, Miles, Dominus de Campdi, natus de Anglia, medicine professor,
-devotissimus orator, et bonorum largissimus pauperibus erogator; qui
-toto quasi orbe lustrato Leodii diem viti sui clausit extremum Anno
-Domini 1371, Mensis Novembris die 17._"
-
-Ortelius adds, that upon the same stone with the epitaph is engraven a
-man in armour with a forked beard, treading upon a lion, and at his head
-a hand of one blessing him, and these words in old French: "_Vos ki
-paseis sor mi, pour l'amour Deix proies por mi_"--that is, "Ye that pass
-over me, for the love of God pray for me." There is also a void place
-for an escutcheon, whereon, Ortelius was told, there was formerly a
-brass plate with the arms of the deceased knight engraven thereon--viz.,
-a Lion _argent_ with a Lunet _gules_, at his breast, in a Field _azure_,
-and a Border engraled _or_. The clergy of the Abbey also exhibited the
-knives, the horse-furniture, and the spurs used by Sir John Mandeville
-in his travels. John Weever, in his 'Ancient Funeral Monuments' (p.
-568), says that he saw the above epitaph at Liege, and also the
-following verses hanging near by on a tablet:--
-
-                       "_Aliud
-    Hoc jacet in tumulo cui totus patria vivo
-    Orbis erat: totium quem peragrasse ferunt
-    Anglus, Equesque fuit; num ille Britannus Ulysses
-    Dicatur, Graio clarus, Ulysse magis.
-    Moribus, ingenio, candore, et sanguine clarus,
-    Et vere cultor Religionis erat
-    Nomen si quaeras est Mandevil, Indus, Arabsque,
-    Sat notum dicit finibus esse suis._"
-
-
-B (p. 8).
-
-ODORICUS OF FRIULI.
-
-Odoricus did not write his account of his travels with his own hand, but
-dictated it to his brother friar, William de Solanga, who wrote it as
-Odoricus related it. Having "testified and borne witness to the Rev.
-Father Guidolus, minister of the province of S. Anthony, in the
-Marquesate of Treviso (being by him required upon his obedience so to
-do), that all that he described he had seen with his own eyes, or heard
-the same reported by credible and substantial witnesses," Odoricus
-prepared to set out on another and a longer journey "into all the
-countries of the heathen." He, therefore, determined to present himself
-to Pope John XXII., and to obtain his benediction on his missionary
-enterprise. Accordingly, at the commencement of the year 1331, he left
-Utina with this intention. On his way, however, he was met, near Pisa,
-by an old man who, hailing him by his name, told him that he had known
-him in India, and warned him to return to his monastery, "for that in
-ten days thence he would depart from this present world." Having said
-this, he vanished from sight. Odoricus obeyed the admonition, and
-returned to Utina "in perfect health, feeling no crazednesse nor
-infirmity of body. And being in his convent the tenth day after the
-forsayd vision, having received the Communion, and prepared himself unto
-God, yea, being strong and sound of body, he happily rested in the Lord,
-whose sacred departure was signified to the Pope aforesaid under the
-hand of the public notary of Utina." Odoricus died January 14th, 1331,
-and was beatified.
-
-
-C (p. 11).
-
-SIGISMUND VON HERBERSTEIN.
-
-Sigismund von Herberstein was born at Vippach, in Styria, in 1486. He
-distinguished himself so greatly in the war against the Turks that the
-Emperor entrusted him with various missions, and made him successively
-commandant of the Styrian cavalry, privy councillor, and president of
-finance of Austria. During two periods of residence at Moscow, in all
-about sixteen months, as ambassador from the Emperor Maximilian to the
-Grand Duke of Muscovy, Vasilez Ivanovich, he earnestly studied and
-sagaciously observed everything that came under his notice, and
-neglected nothing which could instruct or profit him. His work on
-Russia, above referred to, is universally regarded as the best ancient
-history of that State. He renounced public life in 1555, and died in
-1556.
-
-
-D (p. 14).
-
-JULIUS CAESAR SCALIGER.
-
-Julius Caesar Scaliger, born in 1484, probably at Padua, was one of the
-most celebrated of the many great writers of the sixteenth century. He
-was a man of real talent, but of unbounded vanity and unscrupulous
-ambition. Originally baptized "Jules," he added "Caesar" to his name,
-and, to enhance his own merits by the eclat of high birth, made for
-himself a false genealogy, and asserted that he was the hero of
-adventures in which he had taken no part. In order to force himself into
-notice he attacked Erasmus, and in two harangues, which the latter
-disdained to answer, used towards him the grossest invectives. Scaliger
-next directed his insolent hostility against Girolamo Cardano. Jealous
-of the fame of the great Pavian physician and mathematician, he, in a
-critique containing more insults than arguments, ferociously assailed
-Cardano's treatise, "_De Subtilitate_"; and so exaggerated was the
-estimate he formed of the effect of his diatribes on the objects of his
-malice, that when Erasmus died, and a false rumour of the decease of
-Cardano was spread abroad, he believed, or affected to believe, that the
-death of both had been caused by his conduct towards them, and in the
-course of a fulsome eulogy expressed his regret for having deprived the
-world of letters of two such valuable lives. Scaliger died in 1558, aged
-seventy-five years.
-
-
-E (p. 21).
-
-JANS JANSZOON STRAUSS, OTHERWISE JEAN DE STRUYS.
-
-Jean de Struys, in 1647, shipped at Amsterdam as sailmaker's mate on
-board a vessel bound to Genoa. On arriving there the ship was bought by
-the Republic, equipped as a privateer, and sent to the East Indies. She
-was, however, captured by the Dutch, and Struys took service on board a
-ship belonging to the Dutch East India Company, and after visiting Siam,
-Japan, Formosa, &c., he returned to Holland in 1681. Having stayed at
-home with his father for four years, he went to sea again, but finding
-at Venice an armed flotilla on the point of departure to fight the
-Turks, he joined it, was several times taken prisoner, and as often
-escaped or was rescued. In 1657 he returned to Holland, was married, and
-led a quiet life for ten years, but hearing that the Tzar was fitting
-out at Amsterdam some vessels to go to Persia by the Caspian Sea,
-"nothing," to use his own words, "could hold him back." He therefore
-started in a vessel bound to the Baltic, landed at Riga, and found his
-way overland, through Moscow and by the Oka and Volga to Astrachan. In
-June, 1670, the fleet in which he served set sail for the Caspian. His
-vessel went ashore on the coast of Daghestan, and he was made prisoner
-and taken to the Kan or Tchamkal of Bayance, by whom he was sold as a
-slave to a Persian. After passing through the possession of several
-masters he was bought by a Georgian, an ambassador to the King of
-Poland, who allowed him to purchase his freedom. On the 30th of October,
-1671, he joined a caravan travelling to Ispahan, made his way to the
-coast, embarked for Batavia, and, after innumerable adventures, arrived
-in Holland in 1673, and retired to Ditmarsch, where he died in 1694. His
-memoirs of his life were published in Dutch, at Amsterdam, in 1677, and
-translated into German in the following year, and into French in 1681.
-
-
-F (p. 28).
-
-JOHN BELL OF AUTERMONY.
-
-Furnished with letters of introduction to Dr. Areskine, chief physician
-and privy councillor to the Czar Peter I., Bell "embarked at London in
-July, 1714, on board the _Prosperity_ of Ramsgate, Captain Emerson, for
-St. Petersburg." As the Czar was about to send an ambassador, Artemis
-Petronet Valewsky, to "the Sophy of Persia, Schach Hussein," Bell, by
-the good offices of Dr. Areskine, obtained an appointment in his suite,
-and set out from St. Petersburg on the 15th of July, 1715. He kept a
-diary, and was evidently an enlightened, discriminating and careful
-observer.
-
-
-G (p. 52).
-
-THE THREE BLACK CROWS.
-
-BY DR. JOHN BYROM.
-
-The following is the story referred to in the text. It well illustrates
-the process by which the first rumour concerning cotton--that "wool as
-white and soft as that of a lamb grew on trees"--was exaggerated to a
-statement that "lambs grew on certain trees," and were, therefore,
-partly animal and partly vegetable.
-
-    Two honest tradesmen, meeting in the Strand,
-    One took the other briskly by the hand.
-    "Hark ye," said he, "'tis an odd story this
-    About the crows!" "I don't know what it is,"
-    Replied his friend. "No? I'm surprised at that,--
-    Where I come from it is the common chat;
-    But you shall hear an odd affair indeed!
-    And that it happened they are all agreed:
-    Not to detain you from a thing so strange,
-    A gentleman who lives not far from 'Change,
-    This week, in short, as all the Alley knows,
-    Taking a vomit, threw up three black crows!"
-    "Impossible!" "Nay, but 'tis really true;
-    I had it from good hands, and so may you."
-    "From whose, I pray?" So, having named the man,
-    Straight to inquire his curious comrade ran.
-    "Sir, did you tell?"--relating the affair--
-    "Yes, sir, I did; and, if 'tis worth your care,
-    'Twas Mr.--such a one--who told it me;
-    But, by-the-bye, 'twas _two_ black crows, _not three_!"
-    Resolved to trace so wonderous an event,
-    Quick to the third the virtuoso went.
-    "Sir,"--and so forth. "Why, yes; the thing is fact,
-    Though in regard to number not exact;
-    It was not _two_ black crows, 'twas only _one_!
-    The truth of which you may depend upon;
-    The gentleman himself told me the case."
-    "Where may I find him?" "Why in--" such a place.
-    Away he went, and having found him out,
-    "Sir, be so good as to resolve a doubt;"
-    Then to his last informant he referred,
-    And begged to know if true what he had heard.
-    "Did you, sir, throw up a black crow?" "Not I!"
-    "Bless me, how people propagate a lie!
-    Black crows have been thrown up, _three_, _two_, and _one_;
-    And here, I find, all comes at last to _none_!
-    Did you say nothing of a crow at all?"
-    "Crow?--crow?--perhaps I might; now I recall
-    The matter over." "And pray, sir, what was't?"
-    "Why, I was horrid sick, and at the last
-    I did throw up, and told my neighbours so,
-    Something that was--_as black_, sir, _as a crow_."
-
-
-H (p. 71).
-
-THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ALEXANDRINE LIBRARY.
-
-This magnificent collection, founded by Ptolemy Soter, and added to by
-his successors, was twice partially dispersed before its total
-destruction by the Saracens. A great portion of it was burned during the
-siege of Alexandria by Julius Caesar, B.C. 48. The lost volumes were in
-some measure replaced by Antony, who (B.C. 36) presented to Cleopatra,
-the library of the Kings of Pergamus. At the death of Cleopatra,
-Alexandria passed into the power of the Romans, and this second
-collection was partly destroyed by fire when the Emperor Theodosius I.
-suppressed paganism, A.D. 390. The Alexandrine Library met its memorable
-fate in 638, when, after a vigorous resistance for fourteen months, the
-city was taken by Amru, the general of Caliph Omar. Abdallah, the
-Arabian historian, and favourite of Saladin (1200), gives the following
-account of this catastrophe. "John Philoponus, surnamed the Grammarian,
-being at Alexandria when the Saracens entered the city, was admitted to
-familiar intercourse with Amru, and presumed to solicit a gift,
-inestimable in his opinion, but contemptible in that of the
-barbarians,--and that was the royal library. Amru was inclined to
-gratify his wish, but his rigid integrity scrupled to alienate the least
-object without the consent of the Caliph. He accordingly wrote to Omar,
-whose well-known answer is a notable example of ignorant fanaticism.
-'If,' said he, 'these writings of the Greeks agree with the Koran they
-are useless, and need not be preserved; if they disagree with the book
-of God they are pernicious, and ought to be destroyed.' The sentence of
-destruction was executed with blind obedience; the volumes of paper or
-parchment were distributed to the 4,000 baths of the city; and so great
-was their number that six weeks was barely sufficient time for the
-consumption of this precious fuel."
-
-
-
-
-INDEX.
-
-
-  Ahasuerus, cotton hangings in the palace of, at Shushan, 66
-  Alexander the Great, descent of the Indus and Hydaspes by, 68
-      "          "     sagacity and wise policy of, 67, 72
-      "          "     opens up the Euphrates and Tigris, 71
-      "          "     selects the site of Alexandria, 68
-      "          "     Europe indebted to, for the introduction of
-                       cotton, 72
-  Alexandria made the centre of the Indian trade, 72
-      "      Lighthouse, Library, and Temple of Serapis at, 71
-      "      destruction of the Library of--Appendix H, 105
-  Amasis II., Corselet padded with cotton presented to Sparta by King,
-              46
-  Aristobulus mentions "a tree bearing wool, which was carded," 47
-       "      report by, of the great heat at Susiana-Shushan, 66
-  Arrian's account of the cotton trade in his day, 73
-
-  Barnacle Geese, the fable of, compared with that of the Barometz, 52
-  Barometz the, described by Sir John Mandeville, 2
-      "       "       "      Claude Duret, 5, 16
-      "       "       "      Talmudical writers, 6
-      "       "       "      Odoricus of Friuli, 8
-      "       "       "      Fortunio Liceti, 11
-      "       "       "      Juan Eusebio Nieremberg, 11
-      "       "       "      Sigismund von Herberstein, 11
-      "       "       "      Guillaume Postel, 13
-      "       "       "      Michel, the Interpreter, 13
-      "       "       "      Girolamo Cardano, 13
-      "       "       "      Julius Caesar Scaliger, 14
-      "       "       "      Antonius Deusingius, 15
-      "       "       "      Athanasius Kircher, 21
-      "       "       "      Jean de Struys, 21
-      "       "  in verse by Guillaume de Saluste, Sieur du Bartas, 17
-      "       "       "      Joshua Sylvester, translator of the above,
-                             18
-      "       "       "      Dr. Erasmus Darwin, 35
-      "       "       "      Dr. De la Croix, 36
-      "       "   sought for by Dr. Engelbrecht Kaempfer, 23
-      "       "       "      "  John Bell, of Autermony, 28, Appendix F,
-                                103
-      "       "       "      "  the Abbe Chappe d'Auteroche, 30
-  Barometz, origin of the word, 23
-      "     the fable of the, 1
-      "        "        "     compared with that of the "Barnacle
-                              Geese," 52
-      "        "        "     its various phases and transformations, 1,
-                              53
-  Bartas, the Sieur du, lines by, on the Barometz, 17
-  Bell, John, seeks ineffectually the "Vegetable Lamb," 28
-  Borametz. _See_ Barometz.
-  Breyn, Dr., describes to the Royal Society his Chinese artificial
-  "Lamb," 30
-  British Museum, specimen of the "Scythian Lamb" in, 24, 43
-  Buckley, Mr., Chinese articles presented to the Royal Society by, 27
-     "      "   his Chinese dog fashioned from rhizome of a fern, 27
-
-  Canal from Suez to the East Nile commenced by Ptolemy Philadelphus, 71
-    "     "     "    Aden, constructed by De Lesseps, 94
-  Cape route, the, discovered by Vasco da Gama, 83, 88
-  Cardano describes the "Vegetable Lamb," 13
-     "    exposes the unreasonableness of believing the fable, 14
-  Central America, ancient use of cotton in, 85, 86
-  Chappe d'Auteroche, the Abbe seeks for the "Barometz," 30
-  Chinese artificial dogs made from root-stocks of ferns, 27, 28, 34,
-  39, 44
-  Columbus finds cotton in use in America, 84
-  Cotton, its use of great antiquity in India, 65
-    "     reaches Persia from India, 66
-    "     hangings of, in the palace of Ahasuerus at Shushan, 66
-    "     found in use in India by Alexander the Great, 58
-    "     piece-goods introduced into Europe by the Macedonians, 72
-    "     shipped from Patala and Barygaza to Aduli, 72
-    "     conveyed by a circuitous coasting route, 73
-    "         "    in a straight course by Hippalus, 73
-    "         "    by the Romans via Palmyra, 74
-    "     the trade in, through Egypt, checked by the Saracens, 74
-    "     ancient Egyptians unacquainted with, 75
-    "     breast-plate padded with, sent by King Amasis to Sparta, 46,
-          75
-    "     Mark Antony's soldiers wear, in Egypt, 76
-    "     Egyptians, till the 17th century, importers, not growers of,
-          77
-    "     in Rome and Greece manufactured by slaves, 78
-    "     vestments presented to ancient Emperors of China, 79
-    "     manufactured by the Moors and Saracens in Spain, 80
-    "     paper made from, by the Spanish Arabs, 80
-    "     manufacture in Spain relapsed after the conquest of Grenada,
-          80
-    "     conveyed by Tartar caravans from India to Europe, 56, 57, 58,
-          81, 82
-          conveyed again through Egypt by the Venetians, 82
-    "     manufacture in Saxony, the Netherlands, and Germany, 83
-    "     found by Columbus in daily use in the West Indies, 84
-    "        "     Magalhaens in use in Brazil, 84
-    "     used by the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians, 85, 86
-    "     mummy cloths brought from ancient Peruvian tombs, 86
-    "     imported into England in the 16th century through Antwerp, 91
-    "     statistics, 92
-    "     now crosses from India by the route planned by Alexander, 95
-  Cotton-plant, the, described by Theophrastus, 47
-        "        "        "       Pomponius Mela, 48
-        "        "        "       Julius Pollux, 49
-        "       botany of the, 63
-        "       the, indigenous to India, 64
-        "        "   noticed in India by Alexander and his army, 58
-        "       culture of the, in China encouraged by the Mongols, 79
-        "        "        "        Arabia and Syria, 77
-        "        "        "        Spain by the Saracens and Moors, 80
-        "        "        "          "   relapsed after the conquest of
-                                         Grenada, 80
-        "       the, still grows wild in the Peninsula, 81
-  Cotton-wool the fleece of the "Scythian Lamb," 63
-  Ctesias writes of the "trees that bear wool," 46
-
-  Danielovich, Demetrius, describes the "Vegetable Lamb" to Von
-  Herberstein, 12
-  Darwin, Dr. Erasmus, lines by, on the "Barometz," 35
-  De la Croix, Dr., Latin lines by, on the Barometz, 36
-  Deusingius, Antonius, disbelieves the animal-plant monstrosity, 15
-  Dicksonia barometz a tree-fern, 40
-      "        "     toy dogs made from rhizomes of, by the Chinese, 41
-      "        "     does not grow in Tartary or Scythia, 44
-  Duret, Claude, describes the "Barometz," 3
-    "      "     avows his entire belief in the rumour, 16
-
-  East India Company incorporated, 92
-  Egypt, the route from India to Europe planned by Alexander, 68, 93, 95
-    "    conquest of, by the Saracens, 7
-    "    the country of flax, 75, 79
-    "    the high road to India to be guarded, 96
-  Egyptian maritime traffic with the East lasted 1000 years, 74
-  Egyptians, the ancient, unacquainted with cotton, 75
-      "      till the 17th century importers not growers of cotton, 77
-
-  Ferns, models of dogs made of, by the Chinese, 27, 28, 34, 39, 44
-    "    their economic value, 40, 41
-  Flemish weavers settle in Manchester, 90
-
-  General belief in the "Vegetable Lamb," 2
-
-  Hebrew, ancient, version of the fable, 6
-  Herberstein, Sigismund von, describes the "Vegetable Lamb," 11
-  Herodotus writes of trees bearing for their fruit fleeces of wool, 46
-  Hippalus notices the monsoons, 73
-
-  India, use of cotton in, mentioned by Herodotus, 46
-    "         "         "         "     Ctesias, 46
-    "         "         "         "     Nearchus, 46
-    "         "         "         "     Aristobulus, 47
-    "         "         "         "     Strabo, 47
-    "    the Indo-Scythia of the ancients, 57
-    "    cotton indigenous to, 64
-    "    trade with opened by Alexander via Egypt, 68
-    "         "     via the Euphrates and Tigris, 71
-    "         "     restored to Egypt by the Venetians, 82
-    "    the Cape route to, discovered by Vasco da Gama, 83, 88
-  Indo-Scythia, identical with Scinde and the Punjab, 57
-
-  Japanese artificial mermaids compared with Chinese toy-dogs, 42, 54
-  Jadua, or Jeduah, the, 7
-
-  Kircher, Athanasius, declares the Barometz to be a plant, 21
-  Kaempfer, Dr. Engelbrecht, searches ineffectually for the Vegetable
-                             Lamb, 23
-     "       "       "       suggests that the fable refers to Astrachan
-                             lamb skins, 23
-
-  Lamb, the "Scythian," why so called, 56
-   "     "     "        see "Barometz."
-   "     "  "Tartarian," why so called, 59
-   "     "     "        see "Barometz."
-   "     "  Vegetable, its fleece cotton wool, 60
-   "     "     "        see "Barometz."
-  Lesseps, De, constructs the Suez Canal, 94
-  Liceti, Fortunio, says the "Vegetable Lamb" was "as white as snow," 11
-  Loureiro, Juan de, describes the making of artificial dogs from ferns,
-  44
-
-  Magalhaens, Fernando, discovers the route round Cape Horn, 84
-  Manchester, Flemish weavers settle in, 90
-  Mandeville, Sir John, describes the "Vegetable Lamb," 2
-       "      "     "   biographical sketch of--Appendix A, 97
-  Mela, Pomponius, describes the cotton-plant, 48
-  Mermaids, Japanese, compared with Chinese dogs, 42, 54
-  Mexicans, the ancient, use of cotton by, 85, 86
-  Michel, the Interpreter, describes the "Vegetable Lamb" and its uses,
-  13
-  Monsoons, the, noticed by Hippalus, 73
-  Museum, British, supposed "Scythian Lamb" in the, 24, 43
-     "    Natural History. _See_ Museum, British.
-     "    Hunterian, R. Coll. Surgeons, supposed Scythian Lamb in the,
-  43
-
-  Nearchus mentions the "wool-bearing trees," 46
-     "     descent of the Indus by, 68
-  Nieremberg, on the "Vegetable Lamb," 11
-
-  Odoricus of Friuli describes the "Vegetable Lamb," 8
-     "          "    curious incident in the life of--Appendix B, 100
-
-  Peruvians, the ancient, use of cotton by, 86, 87
-  Pliny confuses cotton with flax, 48
-  Pollux, Julius, describes the cotton-plant, 49
-  Postel, Guillaume, informs von Herberstein of the "wool-bearing
-  plant," 13
-  Ptolemy Soter follows Alexander's policy and takes possession of
-                Egypt, 71
-    "       "   founds the lighthouse, library and temple at Alexandria,
-                71
-    "     Philadelphus commences a canal from Suez to the East Nile, 71
-
-  Royal Society, supposed "Scythian Lamb" laid before the, by Sir Hans
-  Sloane, 24
-  Royal Society, supposed "Scythian Lamb" laid before the, by Dr. Breyn,
-  30
-
-  Saluste, Guillaume de, Sieur du Bartas. _See_ "Bartas."
-  Scaliger, Julius Caesar, attacks Cardano on the subject of the
-  "Barometz," 14
-  Scythian Lamb, the, why so called, 56
-      "     "     "   see "Barometz."
-  Scythians, the, describe snow as "feathers," 51
-  Scythia-Indo the same as Scinde and the Punjab, 57
-     "    in Asia identical with Tartary, 57
-     "    Parva identical with certain districts of Silistria and
-  Bessarabia, 57
-  Shushan, cotton hangings in the palace of Ahasuerus at, 66
-  Sloane, Sir Hans, lays before the Royal Society a supposed "Scythian
-                    Lamb," 24
-     "     "    "   identification of the above by, unsatisfactory, 28
-     "     "    "   bequest by, to the Nation, 43
-  Strabo mentions the "wool-bearing trees," 47
-  Strauss Jans Janszoon. _See_ "Struys."
-  Struys, Jean de, mentions the "Barometz," 21
-     "       "     doubts the "animal" version of the story, 22
-  Suez Canal completed by De Lesseps, 94
-
-  Talmudical writers mention the "Barometz," under the name of "Jadua,"
-  7
-  Tartary identical with Scythia in Asia, 57
-  Tartar caravans, cotton conveyed by, to Europe, 56, 57, 58, 81, 82
-  Tartarian Lamb, the, why so called, 59
-      "      "      "  see "Barometz."
-  Theophrastus writes of the cultivation of the "wool-bearing tree," 47
-       "       exactly describes the cotton-plant, 48
-  Trees, wool-bearing, described by Herodotus, 46
-     "          "          "        Ctesias, 46
-     "          "          "        Nearchus, 46
-     "          "          "        Aristobulus, 47
-     "          "          "        Strabo, 47
-     "          "          "        Theophrastus, 47
-     "          "          "        Pomponius Mela, 48
-     "          "          "        Pliny, 48
-     "          "          "        Julius Pollux, 49
-
-  Vasco da Gama opens the Cape route to India, 83, 88
-  Vegetable Lamb, the, its fleece cotton wool, 60
-      "      "     "   see "Barometz."
-
-  Waghorn, Lieut., opens the route across the desert, 93
-  Wool-bearing trees. _See_ Trees, wool-bearing.
-
-  Zavolha, the, a renowned Tartar horde, 12, 14
-
-
-  LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
-  STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber's Notes:
-
-Page 24, footnote [14]: The footnote anchor was missing in the source
-document, anchor [14] has been inserted where it seems to fit best.
-
-The original language has been retained, including inconsistencies in
-spelling, except as mentioned below. Inconsistent lay-out has not been
-changed either.
-
-Page 102, ... he returned to Holland in 1681: this seems unlikley in the
-context, possibly the year should be 1651.
-
-
-Changes made to the original text:
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-Footnotes and illustrations have been moved.
-
-Some wrong or missing punctuation has been corrected or added, some
-minor typographical errors have been corrected silently.
-
-Several index entries have been changed to make their spelling conform
-to that used in the text.
-
-
-
-
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